


Through the Blur

by australiansurmise, chibipooh



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/australiansurmise/pseuds/australiansurmise, https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibipooh/pseuds/chibipooh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a drunken one-night stand results in a baby Bruce Banner isn't ready for, he runs off to avoid the responsibility. But soon enough he comes back out of guilt, trying to do the right thing. He suddenly finds himself alone with a kid he doesn't know how to raise, a life he's barely put back together, and an agency that might just see his son as dangerous and a potential weapon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dying Inhibitions

"Come on, you have to come. It's tradition!"

"How is me accompanying you while you get drunk and leer at women a tradition?" Bruce asks Tony, leaning against the pristine granite countertop.

"Going out and having fun for no reason at all is tradition" Tony shoots back, gesturing dramatically. "And what is fun without a bit of alcohol and a few women?"

"Tony, I'm not really - "

"Come on, Bruce," Tony continues seriously. "It'll be fun. You're allowed to have fun, you know."

Bruce turns away, without an answer, shrinking in on himself. 

"Don't do this, Banner," Tony tells him in a low voice, stepping up behind him. "Don't keep wallowing in self-loathing. It doesn't help anyone."

Clint walks in then, edging around them to get at the refrigerator. "Oh, sorry," he mumbles, mouth full of something or the other. "Didn't mean to interrupt your little lovefest in the kitchen."

"Barton, we're going out drinking tonight," Tony tells him. "Wear something other than that awful SHIELD uniform."

Clint rolls his eyes. "You coming too, doc?"

"No, I - " Bruce begins, but Tony cuts him off smoothly.

"Of course he is."

Raising his eyebrows briefly, Clint shrugs. "Sounds fun." And then he laughs. "Never thought I'd be going out drinking with Iron Man and the Hulk. If only the guys at the circus could see this." He headed out of the room, still chuckling.

"Well, that's settled then," Tony says with a grin. "Get ready for a hell of a night, doc!"

"None of those snooty-ass overpriced bars, Stark," Clint calls from down the hall.

"Yeah, yeah," Tony mutters. "We'll go somewhere dingy and cheap enough for your lowborn sensibilities."

"I heard that!"

Bruce sighs resignedly.

\------

"Come on, just one more," Tony urges, signaling the bartender to refill his glass again.

Bruce shakes his head stubbornly. "I don't do well when I'm not in control," he reminds Tony.

Tony claps him on the shoulder. "A couple drinks won't cause you to lose control," Tony tells him. Bruce has to give it to the man; he's consumed about four times the alcohol Bruce has and he's not even slurring yet.

"Well you'd be the expert on that," Bruce replies with another wry smile.

Tony laughs, a little too loudly, but that's to be expected at this point. "Of course I am. And really, you must try something better than that, doc," he says, gesturing to Bruce's drink. "Really? Hard lemonade? That's no way to impress the ladies!" He winks over at some blonde bimbo across the bar, who giggles loudly with her friends in response.

"That's not really what I'm going for."

"That's what you should be going for," Tony replies immediately, swallowing back his scotch with a grimace. "This is the last time I listen to Barton about bars," he mutters.

Bruce just smiles, looking down into his drink. He taps his fingers on the wooden bar top. It's clean enough, though he can't say the same for the floor, and the dim lights above their heads cast slight shadows across peeling brown paint on the walls. 

"Oh, come on. At least try something else," Tony presses, wrinkling his nose at Bruce's drink.

"Alright, fine," Bruce agrees, tired of the argument. "You order for me, since you're the expert." Over on the other side of the room, Clint had attracted an audience to his little darts game. Watching the marksman play darts wasn't an overly interesting sight, but Bruce couldn't look away. Clint would cheer whenever he hit his target and groan when he missed his mark completely, though Bruce had the feeling he was missing on purpose now and again.. Bruce couldn't remember the last time he'd played a game, let alone darts. After a few minutes of watching, Bruce turned away and stared back into his glass.

"Alright, here we go, big guy," he hears Tony say. "I got just the thing for you."

His glass has transformed into a shot glass of bright green liquid. 

Damn Tony fucking Stark.

"That is so not funny, Tony," he mutters.

Tony has the gall to put on an innocent face. "What? Oh, you mean the resemblance, color-wise, to your charming alter ego? It's just absinthe. Plenty of people drink it." 

Bruce shakes his head ruefully. "I am not drinking that." 

"Aw, come on, Bruce. You know you're gonna give in, why don't we skip the argument and go straight to the part where you give in?"

\------

"You need another drink, honey?" Tony asks the blonde one on his left. Christy, he thinks she said her name was. Or maybe Cathy. Or Kirsten. Or was it Amy?

Oh, what does it matter anyway? He's about five drinks too far to worry about names. She's pretty, and that's all that really counts at this point.

Oh, what a night. Clint had gone off early with a cute girl on each arm, and he'd finally managed to get enough alcohol into Bruce that he'd wandered off with some young, dark-skinned woman. He hadn't stopped them when they'd stumbled towards the door; if there was one thing Bruce Banner needed, it was to get laid.

And so he stumbles out the door with just Mary or Lauren or Jenny, congratulating himself on such a successful night for everyone.

\------

The first thing Bruce is aware of is the pounding pain in his head. He hasn't had pain this bad in years, he thinks dully, rolling over with a groan. Clearly he had stayed up too late last night, and - 

His thoughts freeze midsentence as his arm meets something else in his bed.

It's a very long moment before he moves again, gingerly moving to see that, first of all, the tiny bedroom is clearly not his room, especially judging by the purple wallpaper and jewelry case open on the dresser. The light blue patterned comforter he's half under is warm but unfamiliar, but more importantly, there's a woman sleeping next to him. Naked.

Bruce fights back the urge to throw up, though he's not sure how much of that is his hangover.

His hangover. Yes, he'd been out drinking. He remembers Tony, plunking down a green drink in front of him with a cheeky grin, and then...

Not much. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, trying to will his mind to remember what he'd done last night. This is worse than when he has an incident, because then he at least has an excuse, but he _should_ remember this.

Oh God. What if he had hulked out? His mind races along side his heart. He couldn't have sex with Betty then, what if this time he had...

His fears are partially assuaged when the woman - God, he doesn't even remember her name - rolls over in her sleep. He lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. The room looks orderly enough, save from the articles of clothing strewn haphazardly on the floor, and she doesn't have any visible bruises...

So maybe he's safe. Maybe the alcohol had subdued the Hulk. Maybe he'd just gotten lucky. 

And his head really fucking hurts.

Still, he scribbles his cell phone number on a sheet of paper and drops it on the pillow. 

He gathers his clothes (not at all ripped or shredded) as quietly as he can and drags himself out the door.

And all he can think is _what the hell did Tony give me?_


	2. Spill Your Secrets

He hoped to get back to his room in Avengers Mansion without seeing anyone.

"Are you just getting in?"

He's really starting to wonder if the universe has a personal vendetta against him. Of course, this is Avengers Mansion, and he never asked, but he's sure Tony put together some sort of completely over-the-top security system that announces his presence the moment he steps through the gate. He pauses for a moment, just to glance over and see that it's Steve, looking perfectly put together in a black button down shirt and khaki pants. "What does it look like?" he replies, with irritation he doesn't make an effort to conceal.

"Well, it looks like you were out all night," Steve answers, though Bruce meant the question more as rhetorical. He quickly catches up, walking in stride with Bruce. "What were you doing?"

"What do you think I was doing?"

"Well...you went out drinking with Clint and Tony...so I guess you probably..." Steve colors a little, which would be cute if Bruce wasn't so damn hung-over. "Oh. So...hangover?" 

"Why are you asking questions you know the answer to?" Bruce snaps, collapsing into a chair at the counter. The last thing he wants is a lecture from Captain America about his recent, though admittedly questionable, lifestyle choices. He lets his head fall onto the counter, covering it with his arms in an attempt to block out all possible light and sound.

"I've got just the thing," Steve says, far too cheerfully. "It'll get you up and running in no time. And you should lay down for awhile, and -"

Bruce groans, squinting out from the safety of his arms to watch Steve gathering various ingredients from around the kitchen. "I'm not taking advice from a man who should be too old to even hold his liquor."

Steve's well-intentioned crusade of assistance skids to a halt. "Oh," he says, and Bruce just knows he'll regret causing that kicked puppy face later. "Well...I'll leave you to it, then."

There's a few, blissful moments of silence before Steve speaks again. "I could drink you under the table, Banner."

Bruce is really in no position to argue, if his headache, nausea, and amnesia are anything to go by, but his mouth speaks of it's own accord. "Next time, grandpa."

\-----

Natasha is next, finding him still sprawled out on the countertop. "Post walk of shame, huh, Banner?"

He presses his fingers into his temples as he turns to face her. "What?" he asks, knowing his annoyance is coloring his tone.

"Walk of shame," she repeats. "The trek back home after a drunken one night stand," she says as she expertly works the industrial sized coffee pot next to the sink.

"Oh," he mutters, unable to come up with the effort to be more original in his response. "I was out with Tony and Clint -"

"You don't have to explain yourself, doc," she cuts in. "I don't judge." She sets a cup of coffee and two aspirin down in front of him before sauntering out of the room.

\-----

Clint's entrance is preceded by some of the most off key, annoying whistling Bruce has ever heard.

"Someone had a fun night."

"Don't talk to me," Bruce groans, and if he squeezes his head any harder with his hands, his skull might just crack. 

The archer just laughs. "First time getting laid in what, ten years? How'd you perform, champ?"

"About as well as your arrows against modern mechanized warfare," Bruce mumbles sourly.

"Hey!" Clint says, feigning offense with an accusatory glare at him. "Don't diss the arrows. It's not their fault you can't get it up."

Bruce hurls the closest thing - an unopened bag of pistachios - at his head. Clint dodges it as he leaves the room, still laughing.

\-----

Tony's questions, at least, are predictable, if Bruce takes the time to think about it. The man can't seem to not know everything about everyone. Except Natasha, who seems exempt from his constant pestering and inappropriate questions. He makes a mental note to ask her for her secret later.

"So? How was she?"

Bruce almost wishes he had a truthful answer to that, because then he'd have some recollection of last night. "Better than you," he mutters instead.

"Wanna bet?" Tony replies with a playful grin and wiggling of his eyebrows. "Come on, Banner, I need details, I'm dying here!"

Bruce shrugs. "You know as much as I do."

"Nah, seriously. What was her name? Where'd she live? She into anything kinky?" Tony perches on the countertop, looking at Bruce expectantly.

"Well, if sex with a green monster doesn't qualify as kink, I'm not sure what does," Bruce replies dryly. 

"You hulked out?!" Tony asks, eyes going almost comically wide. "Uh...how'd that turn out?"

"I don't know if I did or not, Tony. I don't remember."

"You don't remember?" Tony's tone is skeptical as he hops off the counter to head to the fridge. "Come on, it's not like I'm gonna tell anyone. I'm sure I've done worse."

Bruce sighs. The pounding in his head has subsided from rock and roll drummer to knocking down the door, leaving him mostly weary and slightly nauseous. "I really don't remember."

"You're holding out on me, Banner," Tony says, leveling a fork at Bruce accusingly. "Fine. But sooner or later, I find out, Banner. I always find out."

"Well if you do, be sure to tell me. I'd love to know what happened last night," Bruce retorts sourly.

Tony shakes his head, turning to go with a dramatic sigh. "Did you at least use the condoms I gave you?"

Bruce's head snaps up at that, though it protests quite violently at such sudden movement. "What?"

"The condoms I gave you," Tony repeats. "You do know what they're for, don't you?"

Bruce frowns. "You gave them to me? Last night?"

"Are you sure you didn't hulk out?" Tony steps closer, examining his face closely. "Before you went off with her. You put them in your pocket."

Feeling foolish, Bruce reaches into his pocket, slightly surprised when his fingers find plastic there. He pulls out two condoms, holding them in his palm as he tries desperately to recall how they'd gotten there.

"Ah, that's good then," Tony says. "I gave you three."

When Bruce finally manages to get himself to his room and change clothes, he doesn't think anything of the tiny plastic packet that falls out of his other pocket. He just drops into bed and falls asleep.


	3. Let it Come

_Not a single object in the room seems to have edges; each color blurs into the next so maybe there aren't any objects in the room, maybe they're alone with the mud-colored walls and squeaky bed frame, alone except for each other._

_He's so warm, so sensitive, and he can't come up with a conscious thought to save his life, but it doesn't matter, how can words possibly matter when the world is a chaotic blend of color and sound and feeling?_

_A hand, in his hair, stroking, petting, tugging,_ yanking _until he lets his head fall back. And there's nothing he can do but let the feelings overwhelm him as they slam into him one after the other, each with tidal wave force, demanding his wholehearted attention._

_Dark skin under his lips, under his tongue, under his teeth, and dark hair in his fingers, and it feels so good, so impossibly_ good, _and maybe, just maybe it won't end, maybe they can stay here like this forever, maybe all that really matters are the feelings and sensations and caresses._

_Because if this lasts, he can forget about fear and anger and monsters in the dark, if he can just hold onto this feeling, can keep some souvenir of it, he has a chance of being whole again..._

Bruce wakes up slowly, sweaty beneath the sheets. He lies there for along time, trying to piece together the memories, but they are as slippery as the dream. So he closes his eyes and lets himself drift back off. False hopes aren't worth clinging to.

\-----

He doesn't dream of it again. Whether it's his subconscious running rampant with a mind of its own, or he simply doesn't remember the night, and the other dream was simply his own fantasy given a viable outlet, he doesn't know, or particularly care.

Clint's teasing runs its course after about three days, and after a week even Tony lets the matter rest. Bruce forgets it himself, somewhere in between the Skrull attack in central park and the Zodiac episode in Paris that took _days_ to rectify.

One night of memory loss just doesn't seem all that important.

\-----

It's been almost a month when he gets a call from a number he doesn't know on the Stark Industries phone Tony had given him after Loki's attack. He only ever gets calls from the team, and the odd S.H.I.E.L.D. agent (sometimes he wonders if he should worry about those forcibly casual calls). But this reads _Cell Phone NY_ beneath it, so he writes it off as a wrong number and declines to answer.

\-----

But the next day the number calls again. And again.

The fourth time, Bruce finally picks up.

"Hello?" he says, a little uncertainly.

"Oh, thank God." It's a woman's voice, breathless with either anxiety or relief (or both, Bruce expects).

"I'm sorry, ma'am, do I know you?" he inquires, scanning the computer results in the mansion's lab. _If he could just isolate the edited strain of Steve's DNA, then he could probably trace the serum's markers all the way through the process..._

"Um..." stalls the voice. "Yes, you do. We...we spent the night together a little while ago."

_Then if he can track the changes in Steve, maybe he can_ \- he snaps back to the phone conversation as the words penetrate his science-addled mind. "Oh," he replies quickly. "Oh yes. Of course." And he still doesn't remember her name. _Damn it_ , he thinks wearily, and searches his brain for a way to let her down easy, to tell her he isn't really a relationship kind of guy.

"I...uh...I wanted to talk to you," she informs him. "It's...kind of important." She pauses for a second. "I'm really sorry, but I'm not sure I ever got your name."

"Bruce Banner," he breathes, happy that they are at least on equal terms on this. "And...sorry, yours?"

"Brianna Taylor," comes the somewhat relieved sounding reply, though that could be wishful thinking on Bruce's part. "Bruce, I don't know how to say this, exactly, but -"

"Look, Brianna, I'm not really looking for a relationship right now, so -"

"No, you don't understand -"

"So I don't really know if we need to be having this conversation as -"

"I have to tell you -"

"Maybe we should stop -"

"I'm pregnant!" she bursts out, and Bruce's world ceases its rotating with those two words.

\-----

"Hello? Bruce, are you there?" Silence. "Hello?"

"Yes, I'm here," he finally answers hoarsely, fingers gripping the edge of the desk in front of him. "You're...you're sure?"

"Yes," she murmurs. "I saw the doctor."

"And..." he pauses, sucking in a deep breath through his nose. "And you're sure...it's mine?"

He hears her inhale sharply on the other side of the phone. "I don't sleep around," she all but snarled. "I don't make a habit of one night stands."

"No, of course not," Bruce agrees, backpedaling immediately. "I didn't mean to imply -"

"That I'm a slut?" she replies with unconcealed bitterness in her tone. "Look, man, I'm gonna be getting a lot of that shit from my friends and family. So I really don't need it from the man who got me into this."

Bruce stares at the floor for a long moment before sighing. "No, you're right. I'm sorry." He rubs his face tiredly. "What...I mean when...who..." he trails off uncertainly. 

"Maybe we should meet somewhere," Brianna says smoothly. "To talk about this. And get to know each other."

With a sigh Bruce slouches back in his chair. "Yes. I suppose that's probably best."

"How about tonight?"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Bruce answers hesitantly, "Yes, that should be fine."

"Okay. Is a Starbucks alright?"

"Oh, sure," Bruce agrees absently, already dreading it. _Oh God, how could this have happened..._ "But - just to let you know, sometimes my...my job calls me in suddenly. I'll call you back if anything changes."

"Oh? What do you do?"

Bruce smiles despite himself. "I'm an Avenger."

There's a long silence on her side of the line. "Man, we really need to talk."

"Tonight, 7:30?"

"Yeah. The Starbucks on Second Avenue." 

"See you tonight," he mutters.

As soon as she hung up Bruce collapsed, banging his head gently against the table.

\-----

She's pretty, and looks at least 15 years younger than him, which is all he decides upon entering the Starbucks and seeing a young black woman sitting by herself. He walks over to her, trying to stop the shaking in his hands as he approaches the table.

She lets him buy her a nonfat mocha latte, and he gets himself a strong cup of black coffee before sitting down across from her.

Smiling uncertainly, she twists her cup between manicured hands. "So...I'm Brianna. I, uh, I work as a pharmacist. I'm 32, never been married. I grew up here, in NYC, lived here all my life.

When Brianna trails off, Bruce swallows hard before responding. "I'm Bruce Banner. I have a doctorate in experimental physics. I'm 45, and I've been traveling for the past decade, working as a freelance medical doctor in places that needed help, mostly..."

Her dark eyes considered him for a long moment. He looked down at his cup between his hands, trying to find the words to explain everything else. _And in my spare time I turn into a green rage monster that destroys everything in its path._ Yeah .That'd go over real well.

But she takes control of that issue for him. "You said you're an Avenger," she says slowly, and at his nod she continues, "Well you're not Captain America, Thor, or the guy with the arrows," she decides, and Bruce swallows back a laugh. 'Guy with the arrows'. He can see Clint's mortally offended face now. "And you're not a girl, and you're definitely not Tony Stark." He smiles, just a little, knowing what comes next. "So you must be the Hulk," she finishes, expression inscrutable. 

He can only nod mutely to affirm her deduction. They sit in silence for a long time, avoiding each other's eyes. Finally, Bruce says in a low murmur, "So you see why a baby should be avoided at all cost."

Her head snaps up violently at that, eyes suddenly burning with passion. "No, I don't," she snaps in a low, dangerous voice. "I don't see how who the baby's parents are could possibly be cause for killing a child." 

Bruce reels, taken aback by her sudden vehemence. "There's no way of knowing how my genes will affect a child," he tells her in what he hopes is a calm, steady voice, though he suspects otherwise. "There could be great danger to you. To the world. The child cannot be born."

"You think the child will have your...issues?" she asks, tone still aggressive and hostile.

"It's impossible to know," he responds hollowly. "This...situation has never existed before. There's nothing to go off of, nothing to take as an example."

"So we're in uncharted territory," she says with a shrug. "I'm not afraid of trying something new."

"This isn't trying a new food at a restaurant!" he yells exasperatedly, seizing her wrist in a crushing grip with truly noticing.

And it's like time has stopped, and Bruce becomes painfully aware of the heads turned their way after his outburst. He breathes through his nose, trying to rein himself back in.

Brianna is looking at his hand on her wrist, mouth pressed into a tight line. "Let me go," she finally mutters, steel in her voice.

Bruce follows her eyes and releases her arm as if burned. She folds her hands in her lap, out of sight, pushing her chair a few inches further back from the table. Bruce automatically drops his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Sorry," he mutters.

She regards him for a couple minutes before looking back down at the table. Sitting in silence, Bruce has the time to observe her perfectly pressed blouse and flawless hair and make up, which all combine to make his rumpled shirt and jeans feel quite inadequate. 

He probably should have dressed a little nicer to meet the mother of his child.

_No, no, no!_ He would _not_ allow this child to be born. What kind of life could it possibly have, with his radioactive genes?

"A child born with my genes could have an infinite number of conditions, birth defects, genetic issues, that could manifest themselves in countless ways. His or her life would be an endless trial of medical and emotional issues, not to mention social issues. And...and the government watches me - I'm considered dangerous, and my offspring would likely be viewed the same way. And such a pregnancy could be extremely dangerous to you. There's no way to predict the size of the child, the species, even. Birth alone could kill both of you," he explains, trying to keep desperation out of his voice. "An abortion is best for everyone, on all sides."

"Not for me," she snaps. "I don't believe in abortion, and that's the end of the issue." She stands up, glaring at him fiercely. "I'm sorry we don't see eye to eye on this, Bruce. But you need to start working through your own issues, because they're no longer relevant. In about eight months you're about to be a father, so you better get your shit together."

Bruce just sits there, staring at her back as she stalks out the door.


	4. Listen to Me

"Bruce, if you keep calling me to harass me about killing our child, I'm going to start calling you in the middle of the night to discuss diaper brands." Brianna sounds tired tonight, which makes sense. Tuesday is her early day at the pharmacy. It was probably terribly insensitive of him to call her as soon as she got off.

Bruce can't bring himself to care. He's running out of time to make her see reason; it's been almost two months and his window of opportunity is closing rapidly. He needs to succeed, and fast.

"Sorry. I just think -"

"I'm well aware of what you think," she cuts him off briskly. "When will you get it through your thick head that this isn't your decision?"

"When you start thinking rationally," he snaps back.

Brianna sighs loudly. "I'm sorry," she mutters wearily. "I'm just tired. I had a long day, and the last thing I want to do is argue about the baby."

"If you want..." he licks his lips nervously. "If you want, you could come over. I'll cook for you. Whatever you like."

She doesn't answer for a time. Finally she says, "Not tonight, Bruce. I'm tired." And she hangs up unceremoniously.

 _Damn it,_ he thinks. _I really, really suck at this._

\-----

He promises himself he won't call her for at least three days.

He lasts two, and then decides he'll see her in person. He painstakingly cooks a simple dinner - steak, medium rare, carefully seasoned mashed potatoes, and perfectly cooked asparagus - packs it up, and heads over to her apartment.

It only occurs after he's waiting for her to answer the door that this could be perceived as creepy. Maybe he should have called first...

But just as he's about to consider leaving, the door opens and Brianna blinks at him, surprise clear on her face. She raises her eyebrows questioningly.

Bruce holds up the bag of food. "I cooked dinner," he tells her softly. "I thought we could eat. And talk."

"If you're here to harass me some more, save your breath."

He raises his free hand in a peaceable gesture. "We can talk about other things. We barely know each other." She seems to hesitate a moment longer, so he adds, "I brought steak."

And she laughs at that, and Bruce wouldn't have thought it possible, but she's even prettier when she laughs. "You're lucky I'm a poor, lazy pharmacist who loves a good meal," she says as she moves aside to let him in.

\-----

"So...uh...how was your day?" Bruce hedges as soon as they're perched on a couch in her living room, plates and forks in hand.

Brianna shrugs. "The usual. Filled prescriptions, explained drugs to senior citizens, fought with insurance companies. Yours?"

"I...uh...I sat around in a lab and watched computer screens, mostly. It was a quiet day."

Silence falls again while Bruce fumbles again for something to say. "So...how about them Yankees?"

His awkwardness brings a faint smile to her face. "I don't follow baseball."

 _Neither do you, Banner,_ he reminds himself. _Good going._ "Some interesting weather we've been having, huh?"

Her lips quirk up again. "You know, once you've become acquainted with someone else's genitals, you get to skip the discussion of the weather."

Bruce can feel the blood rushing to his face. "Uh, right," he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. "So...do you...are you seeing anyone?"

She smiles again, clearly enjoying his discomfort. "Not really any of your business, but no, I'm not," she responds calmly.

"You could help me out here, you know," Bruce tells her, irritation growing. 

"But where would the fun be in that?" she asks with a small laugh. "I'm very much enjoying watching you attempt to hold a conversation."

"Well at least one of us is getting something out of this, " he snaps, annoyed, though more at himself than at her. 

"Aw, don't be like that," she says in what could be considered a consoling voice. "I'm just teasing, alright? I spent half the day running back and forth from the bathroom with morning sickness and then craving the strangest things my body could come up with, and being disgusted by my favorite foods. So yeah, I'm getting some amusement out of your failure at talking to women. Sue me."

His mouth responds before his brain can tell it otherwise. "If you got the abortion, you wouldn't have those symptoms."

She moves so fast he barely has time to register it before her fist collides with his face. 

The Hulk rages behind his eyes and Bruce closes them shut tightly in an attempt to control his physical reaction. His fists clench involuntarily as he fights to rein his body back in. _You're not under attack. You're safe, you're safe._

When he finally opens his eyes again, Brianna is watching him from across the room, a wary look on her face. They lock gazes for a long moment before he slumps back against the couch, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes with a groan.

She comes back and sits down next to him, just a little tentatively.

"Sorry," he mutters. "That was...I shouldn't have said that. But maybe it would be better if you didn't hit me. For safety's sake."

"You deserved it," she snaps back, but it sounds half-hearted at best to Bruce.

"You're right, I did," he agrees mildly, picking up his plate and pushing a stray piece of steak around with his fork. "But still..."

"Yeah, I probably shouldn't have punched you," she repeats with a sigh. "Sorry. That's just usually how I handle guys being assholes."

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing, opting to idly eat a bite of his asparagus.

"What are we doing here, Bruce?" she asks softly. "This squabbling isn't helping anyone. We need to start making plans."

Bruce stares at his plate. "What kind of plans?"

"Who's going to be taking care of the baby, and when. Getting some sort of nursery. Working out how to pay for all the things we're going to need to take care of this kid. Making sure I'm doing everything to ensure a healthy pregnancy."

"I think..." he starts hesitantly, licking his lips. "I think that if you're dead set on having this baby, we should consider the possibility that this baby would be better off without me as its father. I would do more harm than good for the kid."

Brianna rolls her eyes. "Come on, Bruce. That's bullshit."

"No, it's not," he replies emphatically. "I'm dangerous, Brianna, you have to understand that."

"You help save the world. You're dangerous, but you use it the right way. You know how to control it."

"Sometimes," he agrees. "But under stress..." He shakes his head with a rueful smile. "The baby would be better off without me. Completely."

Brianna's mouth twists sadly for a moment before she responds. "I grew up without a father. My mom said he loved me. Maybe he did. But the fact is I never knew him. I don't want my child growing up with that same situation. I want you in the baby's life.

"So please, Stop all this drama about an abortion. It's not happening. So let's focus on making a life for this baby."

She leans toward him, putting her hand gently on her arm. "Stop pushing me away, Bruce. Life is different now. Let's work with it."

\-----

They have dinner together twice more. He doesn't mention the abortion again, and she doesn't hit him again.

Month three comes and goes. Bruce stares at the clock on the wall of his room in Avengers Mansion the night of the thirty-first and watches the minutes tick away to midnight.


	5. Avoidance Isn't the Answer

The real question is what the child will be like. There's no way to know.

Bruce stares into his almost empty glass of brandy, hoping it might show him the answers. If he could just know what the match would produce, he could figure out how to handle, contain, and, if need be, fix it. 

But, just like the rest of his life, he can't know. His scientist training tells him he needs to know, needs to find out, using any and all means possible, and it's frustrating, so frustrating, that he can do absolutely nothing but wait.

Wait, and drink.

He hasn't called her this week. Bruce knows he should, if for no other reason than to check up on her and make sure her pregnancy hasn't gone awry.

He could just see himself being sued by her family for wrongful death or some other legal bullshit. Wouldn't that just be the cherry on top of this fucked up ice cream sundae.

It occurs to him, as he refills his glass again, that he doesn't know if she has any family. If not, they should look into viable day care centers. Or a babysitter. What if he's needed on a mission and Brianna has to work? Oh God, and who could they possibly get to babysit the kid...?

The weight of it all swallows him up, condensing in on him until all he can hear is the pounding of his heart and the rush of the alcohol. He downs another gulp to attempt to ground himself, but the buzz just pushes him further of his unstable perch.

He swallows another gulp to chase away the thoughts and worry and problems.

Just a little more, he thinks morosely. Just a little more, and maybe he'll feel better.

\-----

"Heads up, doc!"

Bruce barely has time to flinch before the tennis ball Tony and Clint have been tossing around the living room hits him squarely in the back of the head. He rubs the spot it hit reflexively, blinking at Clint with a quiet "ow" on his lips. 

"Sorry, Banner," Tony calls from across the room.

Steve sighs from across the room, staring, clearly frustrated, at the tablet in his hands. "Do you have to do that in here? We have a gym for a reason."

"It's alright," Bruce offers mildly, glancing back down at the papers spread out on the coffee table in front of him. He thinks he must have read them all at least twice now, and is nowhere close to gleaning any amount of useful information from them.

"Hey, so what's up, doc?"

Bruce looks up to see Tony perched on the edge of the couch. His confusion bust be written on his face, because Tony continues, "Come on. You've been quieter than usual, which for you is close to dead silent. Not even a snappy retort when Cap chastises us? Seriously, Banner, what's going on?"

Bruce has to drop his eyes before Tony's piercing gaze compels him to say more than he wants to. He wouldn't know how to even begin to tell the team about this. He can already see Steve's disapproving glare, hear Tony and Clint's teasing and wisecracks, mixed with real sympathy, concern, and worst of all, pity, and Natasha's inscrutable gaze. He's already the loner, the outsider, the loose cannon. He doesn't need this tainting their perception of him, ruining the camaraderie. This is bad enough on its own. 

So he pulls up his best Bruce Banner half smile, and flashes it at Tony. "Nothing's going on, Tony. Just getting close to a breakthrough, I think. I kind of have a one track mind when I get involved in experiments, he fudges smoothly.

Tony's eyes narrow, and he opens his mouth to reply, but Jarvis comes over the intercom with the alarm just in time. _Avengers Assemble,_ Bruce thinks as Steve and Clint stride out of the room to suit up.

"Saved by the bell," Tony says, just a little accusingly, before he follows suit.

Bruce is all too happy to strip off his shirt and pull on his stretchiest pair of pants. He's even happier to step outside the mansion and let the roaring vortex of anger inside his mind consume him, his conscious mind shut down in one fell swoop.

\-----

_Hey Bruce, it's Brianna. I was thinking we could get together and do something tonight. Give me a call back._

Beep. 

_It's Brianna again. I have off on Friday so maybe we could go out and do something. Or we could stay in. Whatever. Just call me back._

Beep.

_Okay, Bruce, this is getting a little ridiculous. I know you're busy, but come on, can't you just return a phone call? Maybe you're out of the country - I guess the apocalypse doesn't always start in New York? Seems like it does, though. Anyway. Call me back._

Beep.

_I'm starting to take this personally, man. I don't know what your problem is, but seriously, learn a little courtesy and call a lady back. I'm trying to be understanding here, but I'm mostly ending up angry. So fucking call me back. Please._

Beep.

_Look, I'm hormonal, bitchy, and my clothes no longer fit. So pick up the phone, dial my number, and call me. You owe me that much. I'm not going to call again. So if you want to be an asshole and ignore me and your child, so be it, but know that this is not the end. Don't put it past me to stalk up to Avengers Mansion loud and pregnant. Women know how to make a scene._

Beep.

The last call is from almost a week ago. Bruce sighs as he sets down the phone. He knows he should've called her back, but he was hoping...well, he doesn't know what the hell he was hoping. It was just easier to ignore the issue.

He's going to need flowers. Lots of flowers.

\-----

Bruce blows about half of his last Avengers paycheck on roses and lilies and daisies and whatever genetically crossed flowers seem to be the least bit aesthetically pleasing at the moment. He doesn't buy much besides food and extra stretchy clothes now and again, so it's not like he'll miss the money.

Still, he thinks that this is a sign he's been around Tony for far too long when he trudges up three flights of stairs (he takes one look at the enclosed metal box that is the elevator and balks), laden with more flowers than are probably possible for him to carry.

Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Tony definitely has a way with women, at least.

Brianna opens the door at his awkward knock, takes in the multitude of flowers for all of two seconds, and slams the door in his face.

 _Well,_ he thinks wryly, _I probably deserved that._ But he doesn't feel like giving up tonight. No, he bought far too many flowers for that.

So he waits. And then waits a little more.

Eventually he sinks to the floor, idly browsing the games someone loaded onto his phone for something to pass the time. He can't stand that angry birds game Clint likes to play...and really? "Avengers Alliance?" Tony's sense of humor clearly has no boundaries, he thinks as he examines the ferocious caricature of his alter ego. He settles for a poorly remade version of Pac Man. 

He's finally figured out the controls when the door opens again. Bruce hastily shoves the phone into his jacket pocket and looks up with a sheepish smile.

Brianna leans against the doorframe, considering him for a long moment, making Bruce want to slink away under her scrutiny. Finally she eyes the mass of petals and stems on the floor. "There better be something edible in that mess."

Bruce swallows, scrambling to his feet. "No, but I'll go get something. Right now. Anything you want."

"Ice cream. Chocolate."

"Got it," he agrees immediately, heading toward the stairwell. "Any place in specific?" he asks over his shoulder.

She smiles, a little too happily, back at him. "You're a smart guy. You'll figure it out."

\-----

He feels pretty pathetic standing at her door amidst the expanse of flowers, a gallon tub of ice cream in hand. He never even felt this stupid stumbling over his words as he tried to ask his chem lab partner out to prom in high school.

When Brianna lets him in, he spends the next minutes moving all of the floral paraphernalia into the apartment and arranging them around the room while Brianna sits on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, eating ice cream with a spoon out of the tub and watches him putter around.

"Feeling better?" he asks lightly as he finishes arranging a vase of roses on the table in front of her.

"Oh, a bit," she replies mildly. "Repentant boyfriend always lifts a girl's spirits."

Bruce freezes midstride in his path to the trash can. "We're not..."

She waves her spoon dismissively. "Just words, father of my child."

"Maybe we should stick with boyfriend," he mutters, grabbing a spoon and heading over to the couch.

When he reaches into the ice cream tub, though, she smacks his wrist lightly with her own. "Hands off if you want to keep them," she says, face serious.

He licks the ice cream off his wrist and fakes disappointment enough that she laughs and relents, moving the tub in between them on the couch. "Alright, I'm starting to forgive you."

They spend the rest of the night eating large quantities of ice cream, watching Law & Order reruns, and bickering over the attempts of fictional crime shows to depict reality. 

By the end of the night she's leaning up against him, laying her head on his chest as she makes some crack about the newest serial killer's newest victim.

Bruce is scared by how much he doesn't mind.


	6. Solutions Don't Align

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big shout-out to Half-Dead-And-Still-Fighting (BleedxLikexMe) for being the first review, and also one of my favorite reviews I've ever gotten! Thank you, thank you, thank you, this one's for you!
> 
> I'd love to hear more feedback from anyone and everyone!

He's just not cut out to be a father, he decides one morning over a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal. He doesn't know the first thing about children, let alone babies, and would hurt a kid more than he would help with his atrocious attempts at parenting.

_Yes,_ he thinks. _I'm just not cut out to be a father. ___

__He then proceeds to repeat that to himself until he's completely convinced it's the truth._ _

____

\-----

Month five brings frantic phone calls at all hours, describing how she can feel the baby moving, and entreaties for him to come over immediately and feel for himself.

He usually talks to her until she's calmed down and promises to come over the next day.

Which usually doesn't happen. Bruce comes up with some sort of excuse - "I have an Avengers thing," usually - and the whole cycle starts over again.

Month six brings cranky, frustrated Brianna who loses patience with his avoidance scheme. She calls him about twice a week with snappy retorts and biting comments enough to give even Tony a run for his money. Usually the conversation ends with Bruce feeling suitably chastened and Brianna just about as angry as when he picked up the phone.

Month seven starts with a short phone call.

"Come over. Now."

Bruce stares at the phone for eight minutes, swallowing down his hesitance, before getting up, grabbing his jacket, and heading out of the mansion.

\-----

She calls for him to come in, and when he cracks the door open slowly, she's standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the tiny window, arms crossed over her protruding stomach. Brianna doesn't look up as he shuts the door quietly behind himself. And then Bruce stands there awkwardly.

"I'm trying to be mad at you," she says after awhile, voice sounding forcibly disinterested. "Because you're an asshole who's purposely avoiding me. And I'm not sure how much more of this shit I can take, Bruce." Brianna lets out a frustrated sigh. "I should be furious, but all I seem to be capable of is crying."

Bruce shifts his weight between his feet for a few moments before attempting a response. "So...uh...do you want me to get you something? Or...to leave? What can I do to help?"

"You can stop avoiding me," she nearly snarls, still not looking at him. "But...but what I really want is for you to hold me right now, although all my feminist instincts tell me I should kick your ass."

_God, what an awful mess,_ Bruce thinks morosely. _If I can't even handle this when the kid isn't even born yet, how can I possibly deal with raising the child?_

But enough on that for now. Right now he has a clearly distraught woman looking at him for some sort of assistance. He supposed the hero in him can't sit idly by when he could be helping.

When did he begin to consider himself a hero?

He walks up behind Brianna and wraps his arms around her waist from behind.

They stand there for a long couple of minutes. "Your back probably hurts," he thinks aloud. "And your feet. Maybe you should sit down." 

Brianna nods wordlessly and lets him guide her over to the couch, sitting down and propping her feet up. She leans back against him, and he gently massages her tense shoulder muscles.

They sit in silence for a long time, and he just continues to work on her shoulders. Finally, she says quietly, "Thank you."

"It's the least I can do," he replies softly.

"Damn right," she mutters.

Bruce only hums quietly in passive agreement.

There's another long silence before Brianna speaks again. "He calmed down," she remarks.

"Who?"

She shifts against his chest. "The baby."

"Oh," Bruce replies automatically. The baby's a boy. He's going to have a son. He has to swallow hard before speaking again. "It's a boy."

"Yeah," she agrees, sounding mildly surprised. "I've known for awhile. I thought I told you."

"No."

"Oh. Well. I thought with all the possible surprises, we didn't need to be surprised about the gender."

"Yeah," he agrees absently. A boy. It's a boy.

"He's healthy, you know."

"What?"

She sighs, sounding a little irritated. "The baby is healthy. The doctor says he's very strong, and a good size. The perfect picture of prenatal health."

Bruce's heart swells with that news, the possibility of a healthy, _normal_ child welling up inside him. 

He squashes it down decisively. He will not give in to false hopes. Not again. Never again. 

Besides, so what if the baby's perfectly normal? Even if he is, how can Bruce possibly hope to be any sort of acceptable father for him? He'll give the kid all sorts of complexes and psychological issues, and then Brianna will _really_ hate him. Why she doesn't already, he can't possibly fathom, but...

"You think too much," Briana murmurs sleepily. "A healthy baby is a good thing. The end."

He laughs silently, because that's never the end. Not for him.

\-----

Brianna chooses month eight to debate names. Bruce wants nothing to do with it, and tells her she can choose any name she wants.

She complains, but gives up the argument eventually, muttering under her breath all the while. 

Bruce chooses month eight to hate himself, mostly. He spends a lot of time wondering what could possibly be worse than having a Hulk for a father, and the rest of the time wondering how he could possibly take care of a child without committing several grievous parental errors resulting in imminent danger. 

And if the kid hulks out? The weight of his destruction would be on Bruce's shoulders, not to mention conscience, adding yet another layer to the grave he's neatly dug for himself. 

He needs to extricate himself from this situation as soon as possible. But he can't see a way out. Brianna won't let him back out as gracefully as he can, and she knows where he lives...There's no way out, not this time.

Unless...

The solution hits him like a building collapsing in on him. It's the only way - Brianna won't be able to guilt him into anything, because Brianna won't be able to find him. He knows how to go off the grid, spent nearly ten years on the run. Avoiding one woman - and maybe the state of New York social services - won't be difficult at all after hiding from the United States military and S.H.I.E.L.D. all those years.

It'll be easy. All he has to do is go. Quick and painless.

He packs a bag of only the essentials. Clothes, toothbrush, soap, a large amount of cash. Two disposable cell phones, a cheap watch. A copy of the subway and bus schedules. 

After some thought he pulls his passport from the drawer next to his bed. It had been nice, he thinks, to feel like a person again, a part of society. He stares at his name, Robert Bruce Banner, printed on the blue paper inside the brand new little book for awhile before stashing it safely in the side of his bag.

His phone beeps on top of his nightstand, and he reaches for it reflexively. It's a text from Brianna, with a picture attached. 

_Long day. Doc says all is well. Dinner and a movie tonight?_

He looks at the picture - an ultrasound printout - and is doused by a wave of guilt at leaving her now, in the middle of her pregnancy, like a teenage boy leaving his girlfriend because he'd gotten her pregnant.

He supposes he should at least make sure she doesn't have any complications. So he takes a deep breath, forcing his on-the-run instincts back down, and stows his bag under his bed, and then texts back, _Sounds great._

\-----

Bruce barely notices when month nine starts.

He does notice, however, when Briana starts maternity leave about two weeks before the baby's due, though that's largely because it leaves her much more time to call him.

The third day of her maternity leave he brings her dinner - American style Chinese takeout that she loves even though Bruce thinks it tastes more like a Chinese sewer than a Chinese meal - and they have a quiet night at her apartment.

That night he's awakened by an insistent buzzing from his cell phone. He sleepily presses at the screen, blinking blearily at the text message. 

_Baby's coming. Taking taxi to hospital._

Bruce grabs his bag and hurries out the door.


	7. We're Still Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm off on adventures for the next 10 days or so. I'll be writing, but not posting, so hopefully when I get back there'll be a few chapters ready for you all to read!
> 
> Feedback is super appreciated! :) Thanks for reading!

The mission had gone as well as could have been expected. Clint had been reckless and hopelessly arrogant, as usual, but it had all worked out. They'd taken down the cartel, snapped the ring of criminals clearly in half, and gotten out of Sarajevo before anyone could question who they were.

And, as usual, Clint had gone off with the first blonde who batted her eyelashes at him as soon as he'd walked out of HQ. Natasha is used to it, and walks the few blocks to the mansion alone, exhausted and feeling in desperate need of a hot shower.

It's well past midnight, so she expects the walk to her room to be deserted. She's done this enough to know that Stark's almost always in his workshop or in bed with someone at this hour, Rogers is either in the gym punching or in his room alone, and she never really sees Banner after eight o'clock.

So she's a little taken aback to come face to face with him in the hallway, carrying a bag just like when he came aboard the helicarrier. 

He smiles at her uncertainly. "Hey, Natasha."

Natasha only raises her eyebrows at him. "Going somewhere, doc?"

He swallows visibly. "Just a quick trip," he lies. "I'll be back soon."

_Men_ , she thinks with a small smile. _Such obvious tells._ "I told you, I don't judge. You don't need to lie to me."

"I don't need to tell you where I'm going, either," he counters.

"You do if you want to get passed me," she replies softly.

She can see every muscle in his body tense. "Am I a prisoner, then, Agent Romanoff?" he asks, wry smile back in place. "I think I preferred the cage. At least then it was straightforward."

Natasha smiles in return. "The cage was SHIELD. This is me." She shrugs. "You're no one's prisoner, unless you know something I don't. But I will make it difficult for you to leave."

Bruce presses his lips together for a brief moment. "You think that's going to work out?"

Natasha crosses her arms with something akin to a scowl. It's too late to be doing this. "Just tell me why," she murmurs. "What'd we do wrong? It seemed like you liked the team."

"The team's great," he replies. "I do like the team. I just can't...I can't be here anymore."

"Here? In New York? Scared of a few crowds, Bruce?"

He shakes his head with a chuckle. "Calcutta was more crowded than New York."

"So what, then?" she presses. "Someone bothering you? I can help with that. People are easy."

"No, I...I just need to remove myself from this situation."

"Come on, doctor," she murmurs. "Don't insult my intelligence. Just tell me what this is all about, and you can go on your way."

Natasha can see his resolve crumbling, and she steps closer. "Come on, Bruce. What's so terrible that you'd leave in the middle of the night, like some thief?"

Bruce turns away from her, looking to the opposite wall. "You'll take everything I say straight to Fury."

"No, I won't," she replies firmly. "I'm a spy. I know how to keep secrets."

"Even from SHIELD?" he asks skeptically.

Natasha raises her eyebrows with a knowing smile. "There are many things SHIELD doesn't know," she informs him. "But if you're so worried about them finding out, whispering about it in the middle of a hallway with an AI listening in probably wasn't the smartest idea," she finishes, voice so low he can barely catch the words.

Bruce goes silent, and Natasha just watches him for a moment. Then she pushes past him. "Come on, doc."

When they're in her room, she sits down and points to the chair opposite her. "Jarvis can't see or hear in here." She crosses her arms across her chest and leans back. "Now tell me everything."

\-----

Brianna stares at the tiny face staring up at her from her arms. The tiny, innocent face they've brought into the world. She glances at her phone, sitting next to her on the hospital bed, and then sighs, pressing the button to wake up the screen for what must be at least the hundredth time. Her mouth twists at the lack of new messages that come up with the clock.

She's not stupid, and she knows deep down somewhere she shouldn't be surprised. She's been in labor for nearly fourteen hours, and he hasn't even called in all that time. It's time to face the facts, she knows, but she decides she's earned the right to hold on to her comforting delusions for just a little while longer.

Idly, she presses the button on her phone again.

"He's beautiful."

Brianna starts, cradling the baby protectively to her chest. There's a woman with striking red hair standing in the doorway. Brianna recognizes her from the news footage. "He's gone, isn't he?" she asks softly, looking back at the newborn in her arms.

"Is that a shock?" the woman asks, voice calm and controlled.

Brianna can't help but laugh. "No, I suppose it shouldn't be."

The redhead walks in, sitting down in a chair next to the bed. "What's his name?"

"Robert," Brianna replies softly. "Robert William Banner."

\-----

Tony yawns and takes another sip of his coffee, staring at the computer screen. He just can't seem to find the bug in his newest program that's making his suit reset every twenty minutes, without fail.

Bruce promised to help with it first thing today. Tony glances at his watch - 9:45. Everyone in the mansion is usually up by now. That's odd. "Jarvis, is Banner still asleep?"

"Doctor Banner is not in his room, sir."

Huh. He never forgets to come for time in the lab. "Where is he?"

"I am unable to locate him on the premises. Would you like me to track his cell phone?"

"Sure, give it a try," Tony agrees, scanning the lines of code again. Banner must've forgotten, or spent the night out, though Tony finds either explanation rather unlikely.

"His phone appears to be off, sir."

_Off?_

They're never supposed to have their phones off, in case of a sudden emergency. Tony frowns. "When'd he leave, Jarvis?"

"I seem to have no record of Doctor Banner leaving the mansion, sir. I have him entering the premises and going to his room at 11:23pm. But I have no record of him leaving, and yet I can't seem to locate him on the premises now."

Tony freezes. "What, he just disappeared?"

"It would seem so, sir," Jarvis responds, sounding hesitant and even the slightest bit chagrined. "Perhaps it is a bug, and a more manual investigation might prove worthwhile."

"Alright. I'll go check it out," Tony agrees, stretching as he gets to his feet. "Chill out, Jarv. We'll figure it out. Just run a diagnostic while I go find him."

Shaking his head, Tony bounds up the stairs. Computers can be so unreliable.

\-----

"Sir, it seems that we may have a problem."

"A problem, Agent Hill?" Fury crosses his arms resolutely, peering at her. "Care to elaborate on that statement?"

"We've gotten no location from Doctor Banner's phone in over four hours," Hill says. "We got into the mansion's surveillance system. He's not there. We started running images from public surveillance cameras an hour ago, and we can't seem to find him anywhere."

"You mean to tell me that the most dangerous man on the planet has suddenly disappeared?" Fury asks, leveling Hill with a cold gaze. "We just _lost_ him?"

She presses her lips together. "Yes, sir."

Fury turns on his heel and strides out of the command room.

"Sir, where are you going?" Hill calls after him.

"To investigate," he replies without stopping.

\-----

"Has _anyone_ seen Banner?"

"Give it a rest, Stark," Clint calls from the couch. "Banner's a big boy. He can take care of himself."

"This isn't like him," Tony insists, glancing around the room. "He just disappears from the security feed. That means something must have happened."

"It's just a glitch, Tony," Steve tells him with a shrug. "Isn't that what you told me? Computers have problems."

On any other day, Tony would have congratulated Steve on his correct usage of the word "glitch". Today, he's just not in the mood. "Not like this. The footage is perfect - pristine, even - I couldn't have done it better myself. Jarvis just couldn't _glitch_ like that. Besides, I ran a diagnostic, there's nothing wrong. Someone - and someone good - had to have tampered with it."

"Someone good?" Thor echoes from his place at the table where he's paused in shoveling food into his mouth at a breakneck speed. "Are there many such people?"

"I can think of at least a dozen I know personally," Clint mutters. "Banner himself high on that list." The archer shrugs. "Maybe he doesn't _want_ to be found."

This gives Tony pause for all of two seconds. "I don't buy it." His eyes catch Natasha, perched on a barstool, focused on a tablet. "You're awfully quiet, Agent Romanoff," he says, crossing his arms. "You know something?"

"I know a lot of things, Stark, some of which I'm sure would blow your mind." She straightens up, looking him in the eye. "You're being paranoid."

"And you're being evasive," he shoots back, just before Jarvis interrupts.

"Director Fury is requesting entry to the premises." 

"Well, would you look at that," Tony mutters. "It's my prime suspect, right on time."

"Tony," comes Steve's warning.

"Well, let's see what the manipulative bastard has to say," Tony says. "Let him in, Jarv."

\-----

"Where is he?"

"Funny," Fury says. "I was about to ask you the same question, Stark. What are you up to now?"

"What am _I_ up to?"

"Yes. Where is Doctor Banner?"

Tony is actually speechless. It takes him a long moment to respond, but finally he says, low and quiet, "What have you done with him, Fury? Quit this stupid charade. What SHIELD hellhole are you keeping him in?"

Fury considers him for a long moment. "I haven't done _anything_ to him." He looks around the room, surveying each of them in turn. "So who's going to tell me what's going on here? Captain? Agent Barton? What has Doctor Banner gotten up to?"

No one responds, so Fury continues. "Really, people? Banner just drops off the radar, and you expect me to believe that none of you know where he went?"

The room goes completely still. Even Thor stops eating.

And then, very quietly, Steve says, "What do you mean, _he fell off your radar_? What kind of radar was he on?"

"We just keep track of his whereabouts," Fury replies, voice cool.

"You told him he wasn't a prisoner. Was that a lie?" Tony glares angrily at Fury. "Because you're sure acting like there's been some sort of jailbreak here."

"SHIELD monitors potential threats," Fury answers, leveling Tony an icy glare.

"Oh, so is this mansion like a glorified jail cell for all of your _potential threats_ , then?"

"That's enough, Tony," Steve says, steel in his voice. 

Fury glares back, glancing around at all of them, but otherwise doesn't react.

"So where is he, Nick?" Tony asks. "In a cage on the helicarrier? Or have you learned from your mistakes?"

But Fury's not looking at him. He glances over his shoulder, looking at Natasha. "Nothing to add, Agent Romanoff?"

The attention shifts to the two of them. Natasha remains motionless, meeting Fury's gaze glare for glare. 

Eventually, he says softly, "You were supposed to be keeping an eye on him, Romanoff."

The silence is suddenly so much thicker. Steve gets up, glances between Natasha and Fury, opens his mouth as if to say something, and then seems to think better of it. He settles for just staring at Natasha, hurt and betrayal evident on his face.

Tony's face is dark. "A traitor to the end, aren't you?"

She looks actually stricken. "No, I -"

"If I may interrupt, Agent Hill has issued a Level 6 alert. An attack on Philadelphia has been detected," Jarvis says, smoothly cutting off her response.

Steve's face goes into battle mode almost immediately. "Let's go," he says firmly.

"This isn't over," Tony snaps, still staring angrily between Fury and Natasha. 

"Later, Tony," Steve orders. "We have work to do."

\-----

Late in the night, Bruce Banner pulls his hood as far forward as he can get it. He ducks his head, and heads out into the rain, in the streets of Guadalajara, Mexico. 


	8. Power is Relative

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. So. I'm back, and after over 12 hours on airplanes, I only have one finished chapter to show for it. Sorry sorry sorry. I'm working on it, I promise, but I'm very busy getting ready to move into my dorm. So enjoy this one - hopefully the next will be ready soon.
> 
> Oh. It's not beta read. Because my beta is busy too, and I was anxious to post it. So apologies for any and all mistakes. Thanks for reading! :)

"You know where he is."

Clint doesn't phrase it as a question, so Natasha doesn't treat it as one. She just continues getting ready, swiftly clipping on her utility belt and checking the safeties on three firearms. 

"Why didn't you say something?"

There are hundreds of answers she can give, from plausible deniability to its none of our business, but she decides on the truth. "He asked me not to."

Clint crosses his arms, outfitted fully for battle. Natasha doesn't look at him when she speaks. "We had to let him go. It's his decision where he wants to be, and stopping him from leaving would only make us just as bad as everyone else he's ever known. To get him to trust us, we have to trust him."

The archer doesn't react, and though he doesn't show it, Natasha knows he doesn't believe her. But after a moment he nods once and strides to the door.

"Come on, Romanoff. We've got work to do."

\-----

There's a loud crash of glass on glass as the empty bottle of scotch joins its brothers in the recycling bin Pepper insisted be in every room. Tony stares at the small pile for longer than necessary, silently willing one of them to speak to him before turning to examine the liquor cabinet for his next best friend.

"Drinking won't bring you answers."

Tony whirls around, almost tumbling to the floor in an attempt to face the voice as soon as possible. A strong hand catches his upper arm and steadies him.

Tony has to blink a few times before he recognizes the old fashioned haircut. "No, but it makes me feel better," Tony slurs, trying to pull his arm away from the super soldier. 

"Does it?" Steve asks quietly, but he lets Tony go.

It's all Tony can do to muster up an appropriate scowl. His brain isn't functioning well enough to come up with anything more poetic, so he murmurs a quiet, "Fuck you, Rogers," and turns away, fully intending a dramatic storm out of the room.

He falls short of that plan, though, as he trips over the leg of a chair he can't ever remembering putting in this room. Steve catches him deftly again. Tony doesn't have the energy to yank himself away again, so he lets Steve guide him to the couch. "You don't understand," Tony tells him.

"I may not understand what the two of you had," Steve replies, face far too tense for his words. "But he was my friend, too, Tony. Just because he wasn't my boyfriend - "

"What?" Tony demands in a split second of lucidity. "Is that what you think this is? That we were together and he just walked out on me?" He laughs loudly. "We weren't together. Besides, people don't just _walk out_ on Tony Stark." This time his laugh is darker, subdued. "We were friends. I thought he cared."

"Just because he left doesn't mean he didn't - "

"Like hell it doesn't!" Tony snaps. "Let's face it, Steve. He never cared about us. We were just another third world country to him, in need of his help. Just another stop on the map on his way around the world. We were never his friends."

"Of course we were - " Steve tries again, but Tony cuts him off just as quickly. 

"No. You just don't walk out on friends without so much as a goodbye," Tony insists, head in his hands. 

"There has to have been something we didn't know about," Steve says quietly. "Banner's a private person. There's a lot about him we didn't know. That he didn't want us to know."

"Would you stop playing devil's advocate for ten seconds and at least pretend to be upset?" Tony snaps, hands dropping so he can glare at Steve uninhibited. 

Even drunk off his ass, Tony recognizes the anger as it flashes across Steve's face. "I am upset," he replies, voice frigid. "I'm supposed to be leading this team, and suddenly one of its members just ups and leaves without a word to anyone. How do you think I feel, Tony, when it's suddenly all too clear that I don't even know my own team well enough to recognize when they're having trouble?" 

Tony's drunk, and depressed, but it seems to him that there's only one appropriate response to that. He stands up and presses his lips against Steve's.

It's sloppy, and Steve's mouth seems frozen against his for a long moment, but just as Tony's about to pull back and congratulate himself on screwing up yet another friendship, he feels Steve push back against him, and kiss him back.

_Well. How 'bout that._

\-----

If someone had asked Brianna a year ago where she wanted to be in life, being a single mother raising the child of a superhuman would not have been anywhere on her list. 

When Natasha tells her all of Bruce's background that he never offered, Brianna finds that she can't bring herself to hate him. 

She's unbelievably pissed and violently angry and ready to give him a good slap to the face because that's what a man who abandons his child and its mother deserves. But she doesn't hate him. 

She feels sorry for him, and wonders if she would have done the same thing after wrecking cities and being hunted by the government and watching her life crumble around her because of a lab accident.

She doesn't think so, but decides she can't be sure.

Brianna also wonders why Natasha bothers to tell her anything at all, and, frankly, why she even comes over to the apartment once a week at minimum. She asks her one day.

Natasha just shrugs and smiles. "I love babies," is her only response.

Brianna's pretty sure it has to be more than that; she loves children too and never goes to visit her friends when their kids are around.

(Secretly, she thinks that's probably because perfectly happy family scenes still seem to leave her ever the slightest bit bitter.) 

She misses her mom even more now. She finds herself desperately wishing for advice about rising this kid she was so bent on having but now often feels completely lost when she's holding him or feeding him or putting him to bed. Sometimes she wonders why the universe saw fit to take away her mother so early, before she or Brianna was ready.

Then again, she supposes she could also ask the universe why it had given her Bruce for her baby's father. Asking such questions really doesn't offer much in terms of results.

Still, she finds herself wishing and questioning and wondering all the more when she sits on hold with half a dozen daycare centers before she finally finds one that has an opening and is in her price range and is willing to take a baby.

She tells this to Natasha, who frowns and asks Brianna at least fifty questions about her job and her family and her plans. Brianna thinks it strange at the time, but she forgets about it amidst Robbie and work and bills, until one day she finds a check on her kitchen table for more money than she makes in six months.

Natasha never mentions it, so Brianna never brings it up. She spends the money that appears regularly only as she needs it, and saves the rest in an account for Robbie's future.

She's determined to make sure her son can skip the plaintive scholarship essays and frazzling loan applications and struggle to prove his worth to a group of entitled, tenured professors peering down their noses at yet another kid from the city.

She feels a little bad about keeping the money, but she labels it as child support from the absent father and decides after almost a month of consideration to keep her situation out of the courts.

The last thing she wants is more pity.

She's been on the receiving end of it more than once and wants to rid herself of every ounce she can. She's not just a poor girl from the city with a deadbeat dad and a mother that works three jobs instead of showing up for parent teacher conferences that were scheduled because her daughter's grade in seventh grade art isn't quite what it should be.

No. She's a successful woman, now, that makes enough to support herself and enjoy some simple small pleasures. She'd thought she had everything she wanted in life.

Okay, so she hadn't been able to sustain a relationship for more than four months. There was always something wrong; usually she fought constantly with every guy she got involved with after month one, and by month three they'd both be more than ready to part ways.

Once there had been a guy, Brian she thinks his name was, who'd rarely disagreed with her at all. She broke up with him before month three even got off the ground. He was too passive, too weak. Only later did she realize that she'd broken up with him because they hadn't fought enough.

The universe more or less dumped Bruce Banner in her lap (more literally than probably advisable), and who was she to say no when she was clearly a nonexpert on any sort of relationship?

She had never not anyone who infuriated her more.

And yet somehow that was appealing. He was nothing like any guy she had ever dated, and, though they technically hadn't really dated, that made him exciting and new and intriguing. She couldn't throw any of her usual complaints at him - clingy controlling lazy ignorant rude - so arguments and conversations were uncharted territory, something she'd never experienced before. 

She'd thought all guys were fundamentally the same, but then Bruce Banner had walked into her life and she'd had to reconsider that view.

Suddenly, she had something new and fun in her life, a man who was tied to her through the baby inside her. And before she'd even called him, she'd decided that she didn't resent this baby, that she wanted, more desperately than she had originally realized, that she wanted this baby, she was so certain that it was the missing piece of the puzzle, the final element that she'd been missing all these years.

She loves her son. Unconditionally and unrestrainedly. She felt unrepressed joy at holding him in her arms, and she has no regrets about anything she's done in the past ten months.

But she doesn't have the completion she was expecting. She's still missing something, she just doesn't know what, and she can't go in search of it now.

So she gets up, takes Robbie to daycare, and goes to work instead of focusing on the questions running rampant inside her head.

\-----

She almost drops Robbie the first time it happens. 

One minute she's calmly feeding her six month old child, and the next a screaming _green_ infant is in her arms.

She tries to calm him and her heart at the same time, but ends up having to rush to the bathroom to throw up. Then she holds him to her until he calms down. it's almost twenty minutes before he approaches a normal skin tone.

She forgets to go to work. Instead she sits on the couch, staring at her baby, trying to figure out what this means. She promises herself she won't cry, that she won't _let_ Bruce be right. She can handle this, just like every other challenge she's faced in life.

It's about an hour later when she's grabbing for the phone.

"Hey, Natasha?" It's Brianna. I...I need your help. Really."


	9. Misguided Yearnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, friends, here's the deal. I'm moving on Tuesday, which means I'm busy shopping and packing, and then after I move I will be at rehearsals for 12 hours a day for about a week. No promises on when the next update will be, and for that I'm sorry. So here's this one, which also has not been reviewed by my beta/coauthor, but I'd like to post it now before things get any busier. Thanks again for reading!!

Bruce hasn't seen any sign of SHIELD anywhere around him. He's sure they're searching; they can spout words like trust and freedom all they want, they still see him as a threat (sometimes he sees himself as a threat) and so he knows they're looking for him.

So he keeps moving. He hitches rides and stows away, and when that doesn't work, he walks.

He stops for the longest in Honduras, helping where he can. But the people are too poor to even pay a doctor. He takes off at the first mention of _periodista_ and _cámara._

He spends a good amount of time in Colombia, maybe two weeks, but someone brings an abandoned baby to him, and the woman's distressed mutterings of _huérfano_ keep him up for two nights before he gathers his things and takes off.

In Peru he wonders how it's possible that every other patient he has is a pregnant woman who's husband is dead or missing or simply gone. He only lasts eight days before leaving there.

He shoulders his bag and starts on the dusty road, hoping for a better turn out next time.

\-----

It's only three days into Bolivia before he finds himself patching up a little boy, who's mother is trying desperately to speak with him in the most rapid Spanish he's ever heard. He's rusty, and Spanish was never one of his strengths to begin with. He finds himself wishing Natasha were here to translate for him.

He mentally shakes himself as he carefully splints the little boy's arm. That was a different life, one he can't go back to, and reminding himself of it won't help him at all. So he smiles in what he hopes is a comforting way. "Está bien, señora," he says, cutting off her tirade. "Todo está bien," and he accepts the few coins she drops into his hand, and smiles until they're out of sight. 

That night he sits in the tiny tent he's erected for himself and holds his passport in one hand, idly flipping through the pages and letting his fingers trace the ink and paper. 

When he finally goes to replace it, his fingers hit an object in the side pocket of his bag he doesn't remember putting there.

His heart stops for a moment when he recognizes Natasha's flowing handwriting on the outside of the envelope, where she's written his name.

He opens it with hands he refuses to admit are shaking, watching dully as his Stark Industries phone and a piece of paper fall out.

It's a picture of the team, mid-battle. He thinks it's from New York, during their first fight together, and he can't help the guilt that washes over him. He has to turn the photo over to avoid their gazes, and he's surprised when he finds more of Natasha's writing there.

_You're welcome back anytime. Don't worry about SHIELD, I'll handle it. Take care._

He stares at the note until he can't see straight anymore in the little light he's procured. He falls asleep with it still in his hand, wondering if he's made the biggest mistake of his life by leaving this time.

\-----

"You're not going to get anything out of me, Stark, no matter how many times you try." Natasha's sitting at the kitchen table, a stack of paperwork in from of her that she's filling out with the speed of someone who's filled out so many of the same forms she doesn't need to look for the signature lines anymore.

Tony perches on the table in front of the stack. "I could automate all that, you know," he says, fingering one of the sheets. "Bring SHIELD into the twenty-first century, save everyone some time."

Natasha slaps his hand away while continuing to fill out her forms with her other hand, but there's a half-smile on her face. "I think Fury would lose his other eye before letting you near SHIELD's servers." She glances up at him briefly before returning to her work. "If you're here to question me again, get started. I have work to do, agents to harass, and directors to avoid."

"You could just tell me what the hell is going on and save us both the trouble." 

"I thought you didn't trust me," she mutters without looking up.

"I don't," he agrees, voice neutral. "But I could use something to work with. Some bad lies, at least."

Natasha chuckles. "But then where would the fun be? You're less annoying when you're occupied."

"Natasha, I'm not joking. I just want to make sure he's okay."

"You just enjoy meddling. It's time to let your obsession go."

"Banner's wellbeing in not an _obsession_ ," he snaps back angrily. He opens his mouth, ready to launch into a tirade, but, as if on cue, the alarm sounds.

"Do you plan these attacks?" Tony snaps, glaring at Natasha's back as she strides out of the room.

\-----

The last place Steve wants to be after battle is sitting in Fury's office, still in full uniform. He drains his fourth water bottle and sets it down with the others in front of him just as Fury strides into the room.

Steve straightens up automatically. "Sorry to come so late, sir."

"It's all the same to me, captain," Fury says. "What can I do for you?"

"I wanted to know..." Steve pauses, staring hard at the desk. "I wanted to know whether there's been any news about Banner."

Fury stares at him for a moment. "No news as of yet," he says, leaning back in his chair. "But don't worry, captain. We _will_ find him."

Steve swallows hard at the almost threatening statement, blinking as an uncomfortable feeling settles in his stomach. "Keep me updated," he forces himself to say before muttering a quick good night and taking his leave.

\-----

_Gun shots. Overwhelming fear, running through the forest, the enemy could be anywhere. Bucky running beside him, face focused, like on every mission, and the fear melts away, because they know what they're doing, they've done this before, and he and his friends can accomplish anything._

_But then Bucky seems farther away, out of reach, and Steve's stomach sinks even as he calls out in the darkness. "We need to stick together," but Bucky's so far away now, and he can't reach him, and he's falling but now Bucky looks like Banner and he can't even think straight because he's chasing the receding figure as fast as he can but not even the serum can catch him and Steve is powerless to stop it, powerless to bring save his friend and -_

Steve wakes up, drenched in sweat, heart pounding in his chest like he's at training camp again. He rolls over, trying to calm back down, before realizing that he's ripped the comforter clean in two.

Sighing, he rolls over to look at the clock. 5:13. He rolls out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom, leaning on the sink. He splashes cold water on his face before staring at himself in the mirror. _It's 2013,_ he reminds himself. _We're not at war, and Bucky's gone. You can't do anything about that._

He barely even notices when his fist smashes into the mirror, shattering it into pieces.

\-----

He's sitting at the table, slowly eating a bowl of Raisin Bran when Clint strides into the kitchen, freshly showered, and starts digging through the pantry in search of something. "Morning, cap," he calls over his shoulder.

Steve doesn't respond for awhile, but eventually he looks over at the archer dressed in his SHIELD uniform, eating peanut butter out of the jar. "What happens when SHIELD finds Banner?" 

Clint blinks a couple of times before shrugging. "I'm not sure," he says, deftly hopping up to sit on the counter. "I was never part of the Hulk Project."

"The Hulk Project?" Steve echoes, feeling a little ill, though he hasn't gotten sick since the serum.

Clint swallows before responding. "That's what we call it. It has some long ass official SHIELD title, Bruce Banner Observation Analysis and Threat Neutralization Team, or something like that."

"Threat Neutralization," Steve repeats, suddenly not very hungry. 

Clint shrugs again, though his expression is dark. "Or something like that. Like I said, I was never part of the project. I'm not familiar with their plans and protocols."

Steve shakes his head. "He's a human being. Surely they can't - "

"Steve, this is SHIELD," Clint interjects smoothly. "They have one goal, and one goal only: to protect the planet and the people on it. Don't kid yourself. They will go to any lengths they deem necessary to achieve that goal. One person's life is nothing in the grand scheme of things, that's agency policy. It happens all the time; hell, I've done it myself multiple times. Nat ever tell you how she joined SHIELD?"

"No," Steve admits.

"She was a threat, and I was sent to kill her." Clint says calmly, matter-of-factly. "But I decided against it, convinced her to join SHIELD, to work on our side. My point is, people SHIELD considers dangerous die every day."

"But they can't kill Banner," Steve says slowly.

Clint nods in agreement. "No, or I think they would have done so a long time ago, instead of spending the money on a cage."

"So what's their plan, then? When they find him again?"

"I told you, I don't know," Clint says, hopping off the counter to return the peanut butter to the pantry. "I could probably find out, though."

\-----

He knows he can't turn the phone on. SHIELD would know where he is within minutes. But Bruce still keeps it in his pocket.

Sometimes, when he gets a break in between cases of malnutrition and dehydration and cholera and minor injuries, he reaches into his pocket and touches it. He's not sure whether he does it to remind himself that he still has somewhere to go back to, or to force himself to remember, to feel every ounce of guilt he deserves.

It's a little of both, he expects. 

Still, he can't seem to get himself to leave his phone in his bag. He tells himself it's a deterrent, a way to keep himself from having an incident. If he hulks out, he'll almost definitely lose the phone. That thought is a better control agent than all of the yoga and meditation he's ever done. 

Sometimes he dreams about Brianna yelling at him, verbally eviscerating him until he knows what to do, knows how to rid himself of all of the guilt he's accumulated.

It's sad, he thinks, that his good dreams are of a woman yelling at him.

At least he doesn't wake up in a sweat after nightmares of waking up in a pile of rubble with the people he cares about lying dead around him. 

The yelling is a nice change.


	10. Uneventful Experimentation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovelies! All moved and settled (and yet still busy) but I have a chapter for you! I've got lots of classes and rehearsals and practices (and of course fun) going on here, so it'll probably be a little bit of time between updates. Additionally, I'm taking a writing seminar where the professor is encouraging us to have faith in our own writing and stop trying to conform to everyone else's expectations, so I'm going to be going on that track and forgoing a beta for the foreseeable future. I really do think I'm becoming a better writer through this class (albeit slowly) so that's good news for you! Yay! Thanks for reading! Enjoy!

"It's going to be okay."

"How is this possibly ever going to be "okay"?" Brianna snaps back, just a tinge of desperation in her tone as she buries her head in her hands. "In what world does this equal "okay"?"

Natasha is calm in the face of her anger. "We'll figure it out," she murmurs in a voice Brianna supposes is meant to be soothing.

"My son turns green!" Brianna grounds out, glaring up at the all-too-calm woman in front of her.

Natasha grabs her shoulders and shakes her, hard. "Now is not the time for hysterics," she says. "You can handle this. But not if you're freaking out like some stupid girl. Your son needs you, now more than ever, but he doesn't need a hysterical, useless mother."

It takes three calming breaths before Brianna is collected enough to reply. "You're right," she finally gets out. "Of course you're right. But how...what do we even..." she trails off, staring over at Robbie, asleep quietly in his crib. "I don't know what to do," she whispers.

Natasha nods. "That's why you called me. You need to know what we're up against. If the agency I work for finds out Robbie even exists, I can guarantee you'll never see him again. I've made sure his birth records never crossed their radar, but if they hear anything about a green child, I won't be able to hide anything anymore."

Brianna sinks down onto the couch, pressing her fingertips into her temples. "I can't lose him," she whispers, voice petal soft from between her gingers. She waits for Natasha to respond, but after a few moments of silence Brianna raises her head up to look at the pale redhead standing impassively before her. "Tell me what we have to do," she says, voice sounding much stronger than she feels.

The other woman is all business, though Brianna thinks she sees the ghost of a smile playing around her mouth. "First things first," she replies, glancing over at Robbie. "We need to figure out what causes his incidents."

\-----

"Well, what causes Bruce to change?" Brianna finds herself asking. It's curiosity, more than anything, but it's at least a place to start, seeing as she knows next to nothing about this entire complicated mess she's found herself in.

"An increase in heart rate, which causes him to lose control and the Hulk to take over."

"An increase in heart rate," Brianna repeats with a frown.

"Usually triggered by strong emotions. Anger is the general cause, but fear and shock have been know to work as well," she replies, though her brisk tone is just a little muted.

"Or sex," Brianna muses out loud, her own heart just a little too fast. 

Natasha glances up at that, meeting her eyes for a moment. "I suppose so," she agrees, expression inscrutable. "I wouldn't know."

The silence trails on for long, long minutes, before Brianna forcibly thaws her insides enough to focus on the issue at hand again. "Let's get started," she says.

\-----

Three hours later and they've gotten _nowhere._

Well, Brianna supposes wryly, not nowhere. They now know dozens of different events and actions that don't cause Robbie to change. Hunger, thirst, separation from her, minor pain (Brianna almost smacked Natasha when she pinched Robbie's arm and he erupted into tears), tiredness, frustration when Natasha repeatedly took his toys from him. 

Thos injustices to a six month old trigger completely normal, predictable temper tantrums that any community college psychology professor could explain. But they have yet to instigate the problematic change in skin tone that's the subject of their experimentation.

Brianna falls back onto the couch with a small huff, brow furrowed as she stares at the wall behind the TV. "What the hell could it be?" she nearly groans. "We've tried everything."

"No, just everything we can think of," Natasha corrects. "Clearly we're missing something."

"But what?"

"If I knew that, we wouldn't be missing it." Natasha shakes her head slowly. "I don't know," she admits as her red hear bounces gently as she turns her head.

"I wish Bruce were here," Brianna murmurs, surprised by the sudden intensity with which she misses the quiet, frustratingly mild mannered man.

"And I wish I had killed Stalin when I had the chance," Natasha says. "But wishing is useless. A child's way of making excuses. We have to work with what we have."

"And what do we have?"

"We have two women and a baby. Somehow, that has to be enough."

\-----

"Why are you stalking me, Agent Barton?" Agent Hill is brisk, spinning around to confront him after less than two minutes of him walking a few feet behind her.

"Stalking's a pretty strong word, don't you think?" he asks, throwing in a smile for good measure. He refuses to let it fade when her face remains painfully unimpressed. "C'mon, can't a fellow agent walk with a coworker?"

Hill's right eyebrow lifts toward her hairline, but she turns on her heel. "Not without some ulterior motive, in my experience," she responds as she strides off.

Clint quickly falls in step (albeit a very large, quick step). "Not exactly one for exchanging pleasantries, are you?"

"Do you want to waste my time contemplating the weather and feigning an interest in the mundane aspects of my daily life, or do you want to tell me what it is you want?" 

_Women._ Clint thinks with a sigh. "You're head of the Hulk project, right?"

"That is one of my many duties here at SHIELD, yes."

"So hey, I've been wondering," he continues. "What's up with this whole thing? The guy just up and leaves in the middle of the night, what's with that?"

"Banner has a history of being an escape risk," Hill replies without a pause. "In hindsight, it was a highly likely outcome that should have been considered and planned for."

"How was it overlooked, then, if it was so obvious?"

Hill shoots him what he can only consider a death glare. "It appeared after the events in New York that he was stable. He appeared to be a functioning member of the Avengers team, and as such, was easily kept track of. The threat was deemed minimal, and staff was reduced and relocated to work on more pressing projects." 

"You let your guard down," Clint summarizes in a tone probably just a little too patronizing.

Hill stops in her tracks, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "Are you really only here to pas judgment on my leadership decisions, or is there something you actually want to know?"

 _Defensive, aren't we?_ "Hey, hey, I'm not judging anyone. Everyone's just pretty upset about the whole thing, and I wanted to know from someone reliable what the whole thing was about."

"Don't worry yourself, Barton," Hill says. "The whole situation will be rectified soon."

"Oh, so you've found him, then?"

Hill starts walking once more, which is all the answer Clint needs to that question. "Not yet, but we will soon."

"And then what?" Clint presses. "You give him a stern talking to and a slap on the wrist and he goes on his merry way?"

They've reached her office, and she turns to level him one final glare. "Yet to be determined," she says. "But one thing's for certain: Banner's too dangerous and unreliable to be left on his own."

\-----

When he repeats the conversation to Steve that night, the supersoldier is quiet and just nods along, the only sign that he's heard Clint speak at all.

\-----

When he tells Natasha when she gets in late that night, her expression is equally inscrutable. It's not until later, when they're lying in bed, that she finally mutters, "We should keep SHIELD off his trail."

Clint stares at the ceiling, mildly annoyed at her choice of post-coital conversation topics. "Why do we owe him anything?"

"What would you do if they were trying to lock me up?"

The answer is immediate and strong. "I'd take out anyone and everyone I needed to stop that from happening."

"He's one of us, Clint."

He doesn't respond, but they both know he'll do what she wants.

\-----

When Bruce returns to consciousness, his first feelings are of confusion, tinged with a slight hint of fear. He doesn't remember transforming at all, and so he doesn't understand why he's nearly naked among the ruins of what my, at sometime, have been someone's home.

He lets his head drop back in a moment of surrender to the feelings of exhaustion and helplessness swirling around in his mind. He doesn't even remember having a chance to fight it this time.

He inwardly scoffs at himself as he picks himself up fro the rubble. _And you thought, maybe, that you could be around a child? Be a father to a child?_ It's clear, ever so clear, that his instinct to run was the only part of his subconscious that had any idea what it was doing.

Later that night, while he's drowning his sorrows in whiskey at some cheap rundown bar, the fuzzy news channel coming through on the ancient TV reports on the death of two known drug lords, who fell victim to a bizarre, unexplained animal attack, but he's too stuck in his inner mantra of self-loathing to take any notice.

\-----

Robbie is quiet all night, which Brianna finds equally as strange as his green episode. He doesn't cry or scream or make much of any sound at all, and twice she gets up for the sole purpose of making sure he's still breathing.

But her son is fine, and spends his night alternately napping and watching the mobile above his crib turn endlessly.

His mother sits on the couch, a book she's forgotten the title of in her lap. She tries to watch TV, but she just wants to strangle the designers on Project Runway and knock some sense into the doctors on Grey's Anatomy, running around, whining about their petty, insignificant little problems. She puts on a brainless action flick instead, but barely watches the first fight scene.

She promises herself that her tears are only those of anger and defiance, and that in the morning she'll be stronger and not cry anymore because Bruce was not right.

He can't have been right.


	11. Push through the Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's good news, and there's bad news. First, I've been procrastinating for studying for finals by writing. So this chapter exists. But now it's time to do all that studying I've been procrastinating, as finals are upon me. So it'll be a little while before the next one. Sorry. 
> 
> Enjoy!! :)

_"The streets were rocked yesterday when an explosion of unknown origin destroyed a pharmacy on 18th street. No official casualties have been reported, but a pharmacist and two technicians were thought to have been inside..."_

Bruce blinks blearily at the television screen before realizing what it is. The news anchor, a fake blonde woman in a well-tailored suit, sounds so calm, so unresponsive to what she's reading.

He wonders how she manages to do that, talking about death and destruction without a thought. Maybe she should've been the Hulk.

\-----

It's like waking up from an incident, except worse, because he remembers all of the worst parts. He can't speculate that things weren't _that_ bad this time, that maybe he hadn't terrorized quite so many people this time around. This time he knows exactly what happened, at least for the majority of the time.

This time it really wasn't his fault, but he can't see past the accusations stabbing him from the inside. _If you had been a few minutes earlier or if you hadn't been such a coward or if you hadn't spent 5 years running away_...things could have been different. Things would have been different.

So many regrets.

So much destruction and pain.

So much heartbreak.

And, like always, absolutely nothing he can do about it.

\-----

Five years had done nothing to her, not physically, anyway. Maybe she looked a little more tired, a little more weary, but her features were still the soft lines of beauty he remembered.

Watching her in her element, smiling while providing a bottle of pills to an elderly customer, laughing at something a coworker said, made Bruce's heart clench, though he can't quite put words to why. But somehow the sight of her through the window digs a hole inside of him, filled with some strange mix of emotions that he thinks he might have had names for at some point but has now forgotten.

He knows he needs to go in, but he can't even get his hand within a foot of the door handle. He wants to have something real to say, something that doesn't sound like its coming out of the mouth of a seventeen year old deadbeat dad, but everything he comes up with sounds either too pathetic or just plain stupid.

_Hey. I know I abandoned you and our baby, but could I maybe have a second chance?_

_I know I'm a terrible ass, but could you possibly forgive me?_

He sighs, flattening himself against the wall when her head turns towards the window. _It's been 5 years, what's one more day?_ he asks himself, though the argument comes out weak, even to himself. If he could just figure out what to say - 

_Fire. There's fire everywhere he looks, and smoke invading his lungs - he's - coughing? - wheezing, why hasn't he transformed yet? Where did the fire come from why was it still burning where was he anyway?_

_He turns to face the shattered window - when did it shatter? It used to be - he doesn't remember what it used to be, but he thinks it's important, somehow - why could he still think at all?_

_His heart's beating fast, far too fast, he knows he should fix that but the smoke is burning his throat he knows he should get out of here but what if there's something important, something he should remember..._

_Something, perhaps, inside the shattered window? He tries to look through the broken glass, but all he sees is smoke and flames and debris and a woman is screaming -_

Brianna, _he thinks with sudden clarity, and then he's scrambling towards the burning building - he has to go in he has to save her - but there are arms pulling him back, away from the fire_ no wrong way _and there are voices, so many voices..._

_He's pulled away, and he wonders wildly why he hasn't transformed, his heart is definitely racing quickly enough, and he's certainly not in control anymore, but maybe it's shock or confusion or some strange aspect of the explosion..._

__Explosion. _Yes. Something exploded,_ behind his head, _and he hadn't been able to react because it was too sudden, too unexpected, and now he couldn't see, could barely breathe amidst the haze of smoke and fire and debris._

 _But_ she was inside. _He saw her inside, just before, he knew she was there, she had been inside. And now there was fire and smoke where she had been, just seconds before, and there's was no way..._

_His sob gets caught in the smoke in his chest, and he does the only thing he can remember how to do._

Run.

\-----

It's silent in the town, which is usual for the middle of the night. He's sitting on his porch (well, in front of his door, anyway) and the stars are shining back at him coldly in the Argentinean sky. The stars used to be comforting, he reflects, but now they're just a silent reminder that he's nowhere near where he should be.

"Some deep thoughts you're having there."

Bruce startles - who could possibly be speaking such flawless English here? He looks up, and standing beside him, hands tucked into the pockets of his black suit, faint smile on his lips, is the dead agent from the Helicarrier.

Bruce had never actually spoken to him, ever, but Tony would talk about him, now and again, if you got him drunk enough and in the right mood. But Bruce was fairly certain that there shouldn't have been a way for him to be standing right next to him.

"Agent Coulson," he greets dully. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

Coulson's smile widens a fraction. "This isn't about me, Dr. Banner. This is about you."

"Are you real?" Bruce asks, though he doesn't really expect an answer. If his mind is creating mirages of the dead to talk to, he must be farther gone than he thought.

"Let's focus on the problem here, shall we?" Coulson replies smoothly. "You seem to be stuck in somewhat of a sticky situation, wouldn't you say?"

Bruce swallows before looking away from the man-who-looks-like-Coulson. "If you're here to talk me into going back to New York - "

"Who says I'm here at all?"

Bruce presses his fingers against his temples, willing himself to either wake up or come up with some test to prove that Coulson is only a dream. Finally, when he can't think of much of anything at all, he says, "Well, perhaps you should sit down."

There is perhaps nothing stranger than seeing a man in a professional suit and tie settling down in the dirt in front of a tiny hut in rural Argentina, Bruce thinks.

A dream, then. Definitely a dream.

"So, Dr. Banner. You seem to have made some interesting decisions recently."

God. Even his dreams are mocking him now. "I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Of course not," Coulson agrees. "I was just thinking about how proud your father'd be."

Bruce is so shocked that he just stares at Coulson for a long moment before finally the words catch in his brain and he has to close his eyes to avoid their accusing glares. "What did you say?" he chokes out.

"Oh, I just meant that you're carrying on the family tradition, right? Abuse and neglect are very similar, you know."

This time there's no shock to blanket the anger, and Bruce has to fight harder than he has in years as the Hulk rages behind his eyes. He can't escape the internal images, the whiskey bottle exploding behind his head, the beet-red face inches from his own, the voice screaming _"you tell anyone about this, you little shit, and you'll get the same as her..._

_A little boy, huddling in the corner, crying, while a red-faced man rages at him, gesturing haphazardly while slurring through threats. The boy peers through his fingers and sees the woman on the ground. She's still not moving. Why? Why won't she get up and help him? There's blood staining the linoleum, seeping through the clothes, and the little boy sobs all the harder at the sight._

_Hatred doesn't replace his fear until weeks after, when hot seething anger overrides any other emotion he felt. He barely feels anything at all when finally, years alter, someone hears his father talking after he's been drinking, boasting how he'd "put the bitch out of her misery" and calls the cops. He's institutionalized two days later, but his ten year old son feels nothing as he watches them take his father away._

_No. Must not think of such things. He's gone. Too much anger, too much hate. He hast to stay in control. Always in control._

\-----

When he finally pushes all of it back to where it belongs and opens his eyes, he's alone in the dark under the cold stars.

\-----

_Your father'd be so proud._

_Continuing the family tradition._

_Your father'd be so proud._

_So proud._

There's a stinging pain in his cheek, and a woman standing above him, shaking his shoulders brutally. She has fiery red hair that he feels in distantly familiar, but she's yelling and shaking so he can't really tell.

Another stinging pain, his other cheek - oh, she's slapping him, he understands now - and screaming something at him, pushing him away, but what is she saying? What does she want?

He runs, because he knows how to do that, knows how to run like its his job, he understands that. He doesn't know where he's going - it doesn't seem to matter, anymore, so he just runs and runs and runs until running is the only thing his brain can think about.

\-----

The boy - Robbie, he reminds himself - seems content to play with his action figure on the floor, which Bruce is grateful for. He's never actually played with a child before, and doesn't want to start now, not with his brain in its current catatonic state.

He watches the gold and red Iron Man figurine zoom around the living room in the little boy's hand, complete with dramatic sound effects that he doesn't think Tony's suit would ever have made.

Bruce alternates between watching the fight scene on the living room floor, and staring at the TV screen that is playing the news, although he hasn't really understood any of it apart from the short segment about the explosion yesterday.

He doesn't even have a picture of her, he reflects suddenly, as he watches Robbie play. 

For the first time in nearly 30 years, Bruce wants to cry.

He rubs his hand over his face wearily.

"Aunt Natasha said you're my dad," the boy says. "Are you?"

Bruce closes his eyes for a long moment. "Yes," he finally says, opening them again. "I guess I am."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....do you hate me yet?


	12. Avoiding the Avoidance

“That’s not _my_ cereal,” Robbie says sullenly, staring into the bowl of Cheerios Bruce set in front of him. “Those are gross.”

“Have you ever tried them?”

“No,” Robbie admits.

“Then how do you know they’re gross?” Bruce asks tiredly. He had barely slept at all the night before, too busy thinking about how he could possibly care for the little boy he had first left fatherless and now, just as he was trying to rectify that mistake, was left motherless. 

“I want my cereal,” Robbie whines after a moment. “Mom always gives me my cereal for breakfast.”

“This is the only cereal we have right now,” Bruce explains as patiently as he can manage. “We must have run out of yours. I’ll get some later. What cereal do you like?” 

Robbie frowns into his bowl, broodily pushing the cheerios around in the milk with his spoon. Then he shrugs. “It comes in a red box,” he finally says.

“Okay,” Bruce agrees mildly, while resisting the urge to bang his head into the table. “Do you know what it’s called?”

“No,” Robbie admits with another sullen poke at the Cheerios. 

“Well, do you know where Mom usually goes shopping for food?” Bruce asks. 

This time, Robbie looks at him as though he has three heads. “The grocery store,” he says.

\---

As painful as the cereal fiasco seems at the time, it really doesn’t compare to the awkward moment when he finds himself standing in front of the apartment complex, holding Robbie’s hand, and realizes that he has no idea what daycare center Robbie attends. And even if he did, he thinks dully, he wouldn’t have any idea how to get there.

Just as he’s contemplating possible courses of action, number one being locking himself in the apartment and never coming out, closely followed by surrendering himself to S.H.I.E.L.D., consequences be damned, because he’s pretty sure there are no five year olds silently judging your incompetence there, a sleek black convertible drives up, stopping neatly in front of the apartment complex.

“You look a little overwhelmed,” the woman behind the wheel says. “What’s the matter, redneck, big city blowing your small town mind?”

Bruce smiles, just a little, before dropping his eyes to the ground. “I wish it was the city,” he mutters.

“Hop in,” Natasha says, even though Robbie is already pulling open the front passenger side door. “Hi, sweetheart,” she murmurs, planting a kiss to the top of Robbie’s head as he sits down next to her.

“Hi Aunt Natasha,” Robbie says, smiling up at her for a moment before taking out his Iron Man action figure and starting World War 3 on the car’s dashboard.

Bruce quietly climbs into the back seat of the car and focuses on the buildings as they speed through the streets of New York.

\---

Robbie needs no encouragement to jump out of the car when Natasha pulls up to a modern looking brick building with a freshly painted sign out front, complete with rainbows and suns with brilliant smiles.

“Have a good day, _solnyshko_ ,” Natasha calls after him. Robbie responds with a quick wave, hurrying towards the steps leading up to the front door.

“I’ll pick you up after school,” Bruce says. Robbie glances back at the car briefly at Bruce’s voice but his face is empty of any kind of emotion.

Bruce watches him disappear through the clear screen door before turning his gaze back to the street in front of him. “He hates me,” he states before switching to the front seat.

Natasha’s face is impassive as she puts the car in gear. “Can you blame him?” 

“Aunt Natasha?” Bruce asks after a beat, surprised at how much the familiar term Robbie has for her annoys him. 

“Jealousy doesn’t become you, doctor,” she says, eyes on the road. Then, after a few moments of silence, she sighs. “Someone had to step up. To protect them.”

Bruce frowns. “Protect them? From what?”

He can see Natasha roll her eyes even behind her dark sunglasses. “For a genius, you are so stupid,” she tells him, although there’s little malice behind the insult. “Did you really think, after all you’ve been through, all you’ve seen, that S.H.I.E.L.D. would just let the son of the Hulk wander around New York City, unchecked?”

“How could they possibly have known about him?” Bruce asks, although he knows it’s a stupid question the second it leaves his mouth.

Natasha shakes her head. “S.H.I.E.L.D. has access to _everything_ , Bruce. Every record on the planet. Why would birth records be exempt from that? Besides, Brianna listed one Bruce Banner as the child’s biological father on the birth certificate.”

“Then how did they escape detection for five years?” 

“If you’re going to insult me with dumb questions, you’re going to have to get out and walk home.”

\---

“I liked Brianna,” Natasha tells him once they’re sitting in the corner of a Starbucks. “It was a very unfortunate accident.”

“Accident?” Bruce repeats, holding his hands to feel the heat of his chai tea latte through the cup. “Is that the official term for a bombing?”

Natasha sips her coffee before leveling him with a cool gaze. “There was no evidence to suggest foul play,” she says. “Most likely it was a gas leak, or an electrical malfunction.” 

“Is that S.H.I.E.L.D. talking, or you?” he asks.

“Does it matter?” she replies with a shrug. “Either way, she’s dead.”

Bruce swallows hard, looking down at his hands, fighting the bile that rises up in his throat. They’re both quiet for a long time.

\---

“Tony’s still looking for you, you know,” Natasha says as she drops him off in front of the apartment complex. “He never stopped.”

She speeds away before Bruce can even begin to formulate a response.

\---

He feels like some sort of stalker as he searches the kitchen and catalogues each item in turn before reorganizing everything so that he’ll remember where it is. But at least it keeps his mind from thinking too much.

He does the same thing in the bathroom, and then the living room. He briefly wanders around Robbie’s small room, but Bruce doesn’t want to confuse the five year old anymore by disrupting even his room. He stares at the door he knows leads to Brianna’s bedroom for a long time, but finally admits that he can’t bring himself to invade her personal space.

Instead, he turns on the TV, just to let the voices fill up the emptiness of the living room. Then he opens Brianna’s laptop and guesses her password on the second try, only because the first time he hadn’t capitalized the R in Robbie. 

He then busies himself with finding out everything the internet can tell him about Brianna Ruth Taylor, which, in all honesty, is not that much. He spends most of his time on her Facebook page, scrolling through videos of puppies, snarky statuses, and the stray picture of Robbie doing something that she must have found endearing at the time. He scans her personal information briefly, the most notable of which is that he’d missed her birthday when she was pregnant with Robbie. The word “single” also stands out, but he pushes the tiny bubble of warmth that surges in his chest back down, because her relationship status isn’t any of his business. 

Once he’s exhausted that outlet, he looks up recent news articles on the Avengers. The team seems smaller in the current pictures without a giant green rage monster growling behind them, though Bruce thinks that might be wishful thinking on his part. 

He makes himself a cup of tea when he decides that he’s had enough of looking at pictures of New York and Paris and London and Moscow under siege, Iron Man and Captain America prominent around the explosions and falling debris. Thor comes in and out of the footage, and if Bruce looks hard enough he can usually pick out Clint and Natasha -among the fighting, though their slightly more subtle uniforms helps them to blend in with the background. 

He sits down with his tea, and stares blankly at the wall. It doesn’t seem like much time has passed, but when a car horn outside causes him to nearly jump out of his skin, the tea that spills over his hands is cold.

He sighs, placing the cup on the coffee table, curls up on the couch, and tries not to think of much at all.

\---

Bruce gets to the daycare center half an hour early, because he doesn’t want to give Robbie any more reasons to resent him. He waits out the time on a bench down the block, because sitting outside of a daycare center feels suspicious, and he’d rather avoid all unnecessary attention.

He walks into the day care center at 4:00 on the dot, and is met by a cheery blonde woman sitting at the front desk. “Can I help you?” she asks.

“I’m here to pick up my…to pick up Robbie,” Bruce tells her.

“Oh!” she smiles brightly. “I didn’t realize Brianna had a mister in her life! Just let me check the paperwork here.” She flips open a slim blue binder and starts to flip through. “What’s your name?”

He tells her, and then hesitantly adds, “I don’t know if she would have thought to put me down -”

“Yes, you’re right here, listed as an emergency contact. Can I see some ID?”

Bruce blinks, taken aback by her nonchalance. After five years, he’s still listed as an emergency contact? 

“Sir?” the woman says, watching him with only a faint air of apprehension. 

“ID, yes, um, one second…” He fumbles in his coat, hoping he had left some sort of identification in it recently. He finds his passport tucked into his pocket along with the Stark Industries phone he hasn’t turned on in over five years. Bruce hands the woman the passport, who glances at the picture and then up at him, before nodding her approval. 

“Ok, Mr. Banner, Robbie should be just in the next room. Have a wonderful day!”

Bruce thanks her and steps through the door.

\---

Robbie doesn’t speak very much on the way to the grocery store, despite Bruce’s attempts at conversation. He wonders whether the five year old inherited Brianna’s talent of making him feel like the worst person in the universe, or if that’s just something all kids are good at.

He doesn’t talk much in the store either, but shakes his head at each red box of cereal Bruce points out to him. 

“Are you sure none of those were right?” Bruce asks once they’ve exhausted the cereal aisle. Robbie just looks up at him, clutching his lunchbox and action figure close to his chest. “Okay,” Bruce agrees, just wanting that look of disappointment to stop. “We’ll try another store.”

The second isn’t any better than the first, and during the third Robbie starts to complain. “When can we go home?” 

Bruce rubs his hand across his face tiredly. He wants to go home, too, but then he’d have to admit to himself that he can’t even find the right cereal for his son. He glances towards the store window, debating whether he can swallow what remains of his pride and admit defeat for the day. But then, as he’s watching a young couple enter the store, his eyes are drawn to a blond man in dark sunglasses, walking towards the entrance of the store.

 _No. It can’t be._ The odds that they would be at the same grocery store in all of New York City, at the same time...But the sunglasses, the well-toned physique and the firearm just barely visible beneath his black jacket…

It’s definitely Clint. 

Bruce spins back around, crouching down to Robbie’s level. “We’re going to play a game,” he says, thinking fast. Only one possible exit, three possible escape routes from their current location, and two of which would involve going right past Clint…

“A game?” Robbie asks, looking skeptical. He frowns, then shrugs. “Like hide and go seek?”

Smiling despite himself, Bruce replies, “Exactly like hide and go seek.”

\---

If they can just get out of the store without being seen, then they should be in the clear. Bruce takes Robbie’s hand and edges around the display at the end of the aisle. Clint has his back to them, considering brands of ice cream, so if they hurry they might be able to get past him without detection. He crouches down and tells Robbie, “There’s only one rule to the game.” He nods to Clint’s back. “We can’t let that man see us.”

Robbie nods seriously, looking at Clint intently. “We should go now.” Robbie takes his hand and starts forward towards the door, and Bruce is only too happy to follow him.

He chances a look back, just at the least opportune moment, and his eyes meet Clint’s, just for a second. Bruce picks up Robbie in his arms and hurries out of the store.

“He’s following us,” Robbie whispers, glancing over Bruce’s shoulder. “He’s getting closer!”

Bruce ducks down a side alley, making a series of turns down sketchy side streets that seem vaguely familiar. _Left, right, left, left, right_ he memorizes, just in case he needs to retrace his steps. 

Robbie wraps his arms around Bruce’s neck, and squints in the opposite direction. “He’s on the fire escape!” he says.

“Hold on,” Bruce tells him, picking up speed as he gets to a populated street. He tries to blend in with the crowd, weaving between people as he tries to put as much distance between himself and his pursuer as possible.

“There’s a crowded store coming up,” Robbie whispers, twisting around to look ahead of them. Bruce takes his advice, sliding through the door of the ice cream shop and facing away from the window, letting himself be jostled by a multitude of parents and screaming children. 

Then, when he sees Clint hurry past in his peripheral vision, Bruce ducks back out of the store and starts back in the direction they came from.

\---

It might just be the most stressful hour and a half of his life, slipping through the streets and back alleys with Robbie in his arms, only looking over his shoulder when he absolutely has to, but when they’ve finally closed the door to the apartment and Bruce has collapsed against the door, he’s surprised to realize that Robbie is smiling brightly, laughing.

“That was awesome! Can we do it again?” 

Bruce looks at him incredulously for a few moments, and then he can’t stop laughing either.

\---

Clint returns to the mansion tired and dripping in sweat.

Tony frowns at him. “What happened to you? I thought you were just going to the store.”

The archer drops onto the couch and groans. “I was chasing Banner.”

“Banner?” Steve asks, sitting up straighter in his chair. “You saw Banner? Are you sure? Where?”

“In a grocery store,” Clint says. “I’m almost certain it was him.”

“Banner’s been off the grid for years, Katniss,” Tony says, perching on the edge of a table to frown at Clint. “Why would he suddenly appear, and back in New York, of all places?”

“I swear it was him. And he had a kid with him.”

“A kid?” Steve repeats, now mirroring Tony’s skeptical look. “What would he be doing with a kid?”

“I don’t know! All I know is that I saw him!” The rest of the team is silent, looking at him with concerned expressions. “If it wasn’t him, why did he run? I chased him for an hour!”

“Maybe because some guy in dark sunglasses with a sidearm sticking out of his jeans was chasing him? The poor guy was probably scared shitless, Barton,” Tony answers. 

“Come on. If it was just some random guy I would have caught up to him!” Clint protests. “No one’s that good!” Everyone’s quiet, looking like they don’t want to contradict him and hurt his feelings. “It was him, I swear,” he says again, crossing his arms and glaring at them all. 

Natasha watches him for a moment. “You must have imagined it,” she tells him in a gentle voice.

“I know what I saw,” Clint insists stubbornly. 

“Do you need to go back to the psych ward at S.H.I.E.L.D.?” she asks.

Clint grits his teeth and glares are her. “Don’t ever mention that godforsaken place again,” he snaps, and his anger at her drowns out all thoughts of Bruce.

\---

The next morning, Bruce finds three red boxes of a cereal he’s never heard of before sitting on the kitchen table, with a note that says, “Be more careful next time – Romanoff”.

The next day gets easier, and so does the day after that. At the end of the week, Bruce thinks he might just be getting the hang of this, and Robbie even smiles at him now and again. Robbie even let him play superheroes with him the day before, graciously letting Bruce use his Captain America action figure. 

_Brianna was right,_ he thinks to himself as he drops Robbie off at daycare. The thought makes him sad, and he goes back to the apartment and sits on the couch for a long time, trying not to think about her and failing miserably.

\---

Tony has a lot of words to describe Clint, but he doesn’t think crazy is one of them, despite what Natasha might say. The guy might have the attention span of a peacock, and be a little trigger happy now and again, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s nuts.

So Tony stares at all of the tracking algorithms he’s come up with to try and track Banner down. If only he still had the algorithm they designed to find the Tesseract, maybe he could have tweaked the parameters to detect Bruce’s signature, but Bruce destroyed the data after New York, so no one could try to find the cube again. 

He tries to trace Bruce’s phone again, but comes up just as empty as he had the first time. 

He sighs. Nothing’s changed. 

He’s on his way up to his room when he catches sight of Natasha slipping out the door. He frowns. It’s well past midnight, and she’s not wearing her uniform, so it can’t be a S.H.I.E.L.D. thing. “Jarvis, activate the tracer in Agent Romanoff’s phone.” 

“Sir, may I remind you that Agent Romanoff has provided you with a variety of colorful threats if choose to invade her personal privacy again?” 

“I like to live dangerously, J,” Tony tells his overprotective AI with a grin.

“Yes, sir. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

\---

Tony stakes out the apartment complex the next day. Regardless of his jokes with his AI, he doesn’t particularly want to stumble into some sort of secret Russian assassin cohort with his suit stashed in his car.

He nearly chokes on the soda he’s drinking when Bruce fucking Banner walks down the street, casually carrying grocery bags, and walks into the apartment complex. Tony follows him inside and watches him go into an apartment. 

_What. The. Hell._

\---

Tony waits until the next day to confront him because he doesn’t trust himself not to blow up in Bruce’s face right away, and while sparring with the Hulk might be fun now and again, he doesn’t really want to destroy New York. Again.

So he comes back the next morning, walks calmly inside, and knocks on the door of the apartment, ready with countless snarky comments that will cover up how hurt he feels.

But when the door opens, the words die on his lips, as it opens on a kid who looks up at him in surprise. “Oh my God! You’re Tony Stark!” the boy says, looking at up at him in awe. “Dad! Come see who it is!” 

“Robbie, you shouldn’t open the door for strangers,” Bruce says, appearing in the doorway. He freezes dead in his tracks when he recognizes Tony. 

Tony looks between him and the kid, then says, in a surprisingly calm voice, _“Dad?”_


	13. Baby's First Fanboy

“For the record, I still think this is a bad idea.”

Tony sighs dramatically. “Jarvis, let the record show that Dr. Banner is a stick in the mud.”

“Duly noted, sir.” 

“Tony,” Bruce mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose, even though he knows it’s useless at this point. He hadn’t wanted to come to the mansion at all, or see the rest of the team, for that matter, but before he’d had a chance to stop it, Tony had been playing action figures with Robbie and then before Bruce knew it, Tony had said, “Hey, kid, how would you like to meet the Avengers?” 

Bruce had opened his mouth to say no, in no way was this a good idea, but Robbie had looked up at him with wide, excited eyes, asking, “Whoa! Dad, can we? Please?” and Bruce hadn’t known how to say no to that face, so he’d managed a little nod that was meant to be noncommittal but Robbie had clearly interpreted it as a yes, and had jumped up to hug him in excitement, saying “Thank you thank you thank you,” and at that point Bruce had known there was no way he was getting out of this without coming off as the worst dad in the history of ever.

Which is why he’s sitting in the backseat of Tony’s Jaguar as they race through the city, absently twisting his hands in his lap as he watches Robbie, who’s sitting on the edge of his seat and eagerly looking out the window, clearly fully committed to experiencing everything about today.

It’s the most excited he’s ever seen his son, and Bruce thinks this whole debacle will be worth it just for these few minutes of seeing Robbie’s face light up like that.

\---

“Aunt Natasha!” Robbie says when he enters the living room, looking at her in surprise.

She smiles back from her spot on the couch, and sweeps Robbie up into a hug when he runs over to her. “How’s my big boy doing?” she asks, kissing him on the forehead.

“Who are you and what have you done with Nat?” Clint asks, walking in from the kitchen to perch on the edge of another couch.

Natasha laughs, crossing her arms as she regards him. “Jealous, Barton?”

“Of a four year old? Hardly,” Clint scoffs.

“I’m _five_ ,” Robbie corrects, just a little petulantly. “I didn’t know you were coming today,” Robbie says, looking up at Natasha with a frown. “Why…” 

Natasha just smiles at him before touching his forehead with her index finger. “Put the facts together with that big brain of yours,” she tells him with a wink. 

Robbie seems to consider her for a long moment, glancing down at her clothes. She’s wearing all black, including her S.H.I.E.L.D. issued jacket, and she can practically see the wheels turning inside Robbie’s brain. 

“Oh my God,” he breathes finally, staring up at her in awe. “ _You’re Black Widow._ ”

Clint snorts. “Way to go, kid,” he says, hopping off the couch to crouch down in front of Robbie. “I’m almost as cool. I’m Clint, otherwise known as -” 

“Hawkeye!” Robbie finishes. “Your new bow is the coolest thing ever!”

“I like him,” Clint announces, holding out his hand for a fist bump from Robbie. “I think so too, kid. Robbie, is it?”

Robbie nods seriously. “I think it would look even better if it was blue.” 

Clint laughs. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next one. Maybe someday I’ll show you how to shoot, huh? If it’s okay with your dad.” 

All eyes turn to Bruce, who’s still standing in the doorway, watching the exchange. He swallows, taking one hesitant step into the room. “No explosives,” he mutters. 

“Aww, you’re no fun,” Clint pouts, but Robbie’s attention is already been distracted by Steve walking into the room. 

Robbie stares up at Steve in unconcealed wonder as the super soldier walks into the room with only a slight hint of trepidation. “Hi Robbie, I’m Steve,” he says after a moment, his best smile fixed on.

“Dad, it’s Captain America,” Robbie whispers, looking over at Bruce with wide eyes. 

Bruce smiles wanly, nodding. “I see that.”

Just then, Tony pushes past Bruce into the room, waving a tablet in his hand. “Oh good, everyone’s getting cozy. Anyone up for a game?”

“This is the best. Day. Ever!” Robbie says, nearly shaking with excitement.

Bruce finds himself smiling despite himself.

\---

Tony’s idea of a game turns out to be a very high tech version of Go Fish that has Robbie totally enthralled, especially because he ends up winning more often than not. Bruce wonders whether Tony has the game rigged to give the kid an advantage, or whether everyone is purposely going easy for the sake of his son.

Either way, it’s great to see Robbie’s grin as Clint groans loudly before handing over his last two cards to him. “Your son’s a cardshark, dude,” Clint complains at Bruce, kicking his feet up to rest on Natasha’s chair. “What have you been teaching him?”

Bruce smiles. “Wasn’t me,” he says with a shrug, eyes traveling to Natasha who’s looking suspiciously innocent all of a sudden. She just smiles, a little too sweetly, at Bruce before turning back to the game. 

“Any fours, Stark?”

Bruce, having given up his last cards two rounds ago, watches the game progress, easy banter being exchanged now and again. He’s sitting in between Natasha and Robbie, whether by chance or by design, and the position puts him directly across from Tony and Steve. The two have clearly become much more comfortable with each other than Bruce remembers, judging by the closeness of their chairs and the teasing and playful mocking that Steve now laughs and reciprocates. 

The team as a whole seems a lot more cohesive, and Bruce can’t help the pang of jealousy bubbles up in his chest. Without him, the team had clearly managed to become close. _You’re the one who left,_ Bruce reminds himself sternly. _How can you blame them for getting along after you left?_

Bruce nearly jumps out of his skin when a loud crack reverberates through the room, followed by a muffled crash. Tony just glances up from the card game. “That’ll be Thor. Hope he remembered the pizza.”

“Pizza?” Bruce asks at the same time that Robbie says, “ _Thor?_ ”

Tony grins. “Come on, Doc,” Clint says, getting to his feet. “Losers get dinner ready.”

Bruce has no choice but to follow Clint into the kitchen.

\---

Thor is, predictably, ecstatic to meet Robbie, after clapping Bruce heavily on the back. His booming voice echoes back from the living room while Clint and Bruce organize pizza boxes and pull out plates and cups and various drinks.

“I can’t believe you lost me that day in the grocery store,” Clint says offhandedly as he pulls soda bottles out of the pantry. 

Bruce swallows, faintly embarrassed. “I…sorry,” he finally says, unable to come up with anything more substantial. 

Clint shrugs. “Besides the fact everyone thought I was crazy again, it was one of the best street chases I’ve had besides when Natasha and I play tag. Pretty impressive, doc.” 

“I’ve had some practice running from government agents,” Bruce admits, leaning against the counter.

“Are you implying that I’m just another government agent?” Clint feigns a look of offense. “I’m wounded, Banner. And to think I slept with Maria Hill for you.”

Frowning, Bruce gives Clint a skeptical look. “In what way did you sleeping with Agent Hill benefit me?” 

Clint rolls his eyes. “She’s the lead agent on the Hulk Project,” he says. “We needed intel on the protocols and progress they were making on tracking you. So I did reconnaissance.” 

“You…what?”

Clint just stares at him for a moment. “Dude, are you really that dense? S.H.I.E.L.D. got seriously spooked when you went off the grid. They were ready to locate you at all costs, and eliminate the escape risk.” 

Bruce is silent. 

“Tony and Steve spent _months_ at a time leaving trails all over the world to throw them off your scent. You seriously thought S.H.I.E.L.D. just left you alone?”

“Thanks,” Bruce manages after a minute.

Clint pauses, and then laughs. “Yeah, I really took one for the team, getting an excuse to have sex with a really hot woman. Don’t sweat it, Bruce.”

\---

“Never trust an Asgardian to pick pizza toppings,” Tony declares upon riffling through the boxes. “Anchovy, peanut butter, and banana peppers? Really, big guy?”

Thor is too busy wolfing down various slices of pizza to answer, causing Tony to roll his eyes and make a selection from one of the more palatable boxes. Bruce picks out a slice of cheese and puts it down in front of Robbie, who seems much more enraptured with watching Thor inhale pizza than wanting to eat it himself. 

“I told you it would all be fine,” Tony says, watching Robbie and Thor over Bruce’s shoulder. “See? One big happy super powered family.”

Bruce nods once. “Is this really best for him, though? Getting dragged into this whole mess?” 

“Everyone in the world is in the mess. Aliens in New York, aliens in London, various evil villains located all over the world. Everyone’s affected, sooner or later.”

“Not everyone has the Hulk for a father,” Bruce snaps, crossing his arms across his chest before turning to face Tony.

“True. A lot of people have a lot worse,” Tony shoots back. 

Bruce just shakes his head. 

Tony sighs. “Does he even know about your, ah, anger management issues?”

“No,” Bruce replies firmly. “And he’s not going to.” 

Tony raises his eyebrows without a response, so Bruce adds, “Tony, if you tell him, I swear you will never see him or me ever again.”

“Alright, alright,” Tony appeases, holding his hands up in surrender. “You sure play dirty, don’t you, Banner? Threatening no visits with Baby Hulk is a low blow,” Tony says with a sniff. 

Bruce doesn’t answer, just glares at Tony, until the billionaire says, “Okay, I get it, don’t tell the tiny human that his father turns into a giant green rage monster sometimes. Message received.”

Managing a small smile, Bruce mutters, “Thanks.”

Tony shrugs. “Maybe next time you’ll trust us enough to tell us what’s going on at the beginning.”

“Friends! Stop and come play this cart of Mario with me and the son of Banner!” 

“Duty calls,” Tony says, leading the way into the living room.

\---

His interactions with Steve are the worst, by far, characterized by forced formality and more “Sure, Doctor Banner,” than Bruce ever cares to hear again. While Tony’s feelings are hidden beneath layers of sarcasm and inappropriate jokes, Steve’s are more than evident on his face and in his voice.

Bruce can’t help the way his heart twists guiltily when Steve doesn’t meet his eyes and gives a noncommittal response. Just like he can’t help the feeling of inadequacy when he can’t figure out anything to say to make the situation better. He can only apologize so many times before it sounds false even to his own ears. 

Steve was awkward with Robbie, too, at first, but by the end of the night they seem to be getting along well enough. Bruce eavesdrops on the conversation as much as he can while listening to Thor’s commentary about the misrepresentation of what he calls “the Bifrost” in the Rainbow Road level of Mario Kart. 

“I wish I was Captain America,” Robbie tells Steve. “Then, I’d be big and strong, like you, and no one would ever be mean to me!” 

Steve is smiling easily now. “I wasn’t always big and strong,” he tells Robbie. “People used to be mean to me too.”

“Really?” Robbie asks. “What did you do?” 

“Well, you see, I had this really good friend who would stand up for me when they got too mean. He didn’t let anyone mess with me.”

“I wish I had a friend like that,” Robbie murmurs quietly.

Steve’s quiet for a minute before he says, “I’ll tell you what. Anyone bothers you, you let me know, okay?” 

“Okay! Thanks Captain Rogers!” Robbie says happily, throwing his arms around Steve. 

Steve looks stunned for a second, and then hugs Robbie back. “Sure thing, kid. And hey, call me Steve.”

\---

“Looks like someone’s worn out,” Natasha notes sometime later, after blueberry pie and countless rounds of Mario Kart. Sure enough, Robbie’s asleep, curled up on his side on the couch in between Steve and Clint.

“A kid can only take so much awesome in one day,” Tony comments with a grin, stretching as he moves to get up. 

Bruce does the same. “Guess we should be going, then.” 

“You could stay here tonight, if you want,” Tony offers. “Your room’s still yours, just as you left it.”

A mix of emotions Bruce can’t decipher at the moment spring up in his chest at that. He finds himself swallowing heavily. “Thanks, Tony, but I think it’d be better if we stayed in our apartment tonight.”

_If I stay here, I might end up staying for good._

Tony looks like he’s going to protest, but Natasha intercepts. “Of course. I’ll drive you two home.”

“Thank you,” Bruce tells her, smiling gratefully. Then he turns to everyone else. “Thank you all. This was…this was really nice. Maybe…maybe we can do it again some time.” He swallows. “It’s good to know that we’re…that we’re all on okay terms.”

“Um, excuse me,” Tony replies. “We’re okay with baby Hulk here but you are still on thin ice.”

Bruce blinks for a second before Thor cuts in. “Friend Stark jests, of course. We are happy to have you back, both as a teammate and a friend.”

“You’re welcome back anytime, Bruce,” Natasha assures him. “Isn’t that right, Stark?”

Tony gives a long suffering sigh. “Yeah, sure, what they said. As long as you don’t have any more secret children you’re hiding away somewhere.”

“No promises,” Bruce mutters before gathering Robbie up in his arms. Robbie stirs a little, blinking blearily a couple of times before wrapping his arms around Bruce’s neck and falling back to sleep. 

“Thanks,” Bruce tells them again before following Natasha out the door. “Seriously. Thanks.”


	14. One Against Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break before this one. I was unhappy with how it turned out originally, so a lot of editing occurred between coauthors. Enjoy!! :)

Robbie doesn’t stop talking about it for _days._

At home, at school, at the grocery store, before bed, during breakfast, on the way to school, during dinner. By the end of the week, Bruce is ready to rip out his hair if it means he doesn’t have to hear about the merits of whichever avenger is Robbie’s favorite today. 

He’s glad the night went well, of course. He’s happy that Robbie liked the team and even happier that the team liked Robbie, and if he’s being honest with himself Bruce enjoyed himself too.

He’d had more fun than he had in over five years.

Bruce might even put himself in the category of _happy_ at the current moment. 

Which is what scares him most of all. 

He’s gotten so good at avoiding attachments, at pulling himself away when he starts to care too much. Bruce knows that eventually, when he’s least expecting it, all semblances of his happiness will blow up in his face, as they always do, and the less collateral damage he has to deal with, the better. 

It’s too late to save Robbie, he knows that, now that Brianna is gone and Bruce is the only thing the kid has left in the world. But there’s still a chance, however slight, that he could avoid dragging down the world’s treasured team of beloved superheroes with him in his constant downward spiral. 

He’d thought he’d hit rock bottom with a gun in his mouth on top of some godforsaken cliff in the middle of nowhere, but if he managed to take down the Avengers and destroy -his son’s life, he might have to rethink his definition of those words. 

He finds himself standing in the doorway of Robbie’s room after he’s gone to bed, watching Robbie sleep peacefully, curled around a Hulk plushie that he has a sneaking suspicion came from Tony, but Robbie seems to like it so Bruce can’t bring himself to take it away. 

It’s been almost a week and a half since their visit to Avengers Mansion. Bruce sighs when he finally closes Robbie’s door softly, then heads to the kitchen, grabs his phone, and calls Tony.

\---

Something about Natasha’s expression the third time Bruce brings Robbie over for what he’s begun to think of as “Avengers playdates” makes Bruce worried, but when he asks her about it, she just smiles and shakes her head, pulling Robbie into her arms. “Tell me everything you did this week, _solnyshko_.”

\---

The fourth playdate marks a month since Brianna’s death. As Bruce watches Robbie school Tony and Clint in a decidedly old school version of Hungry Hungry Hippos, he thinks that Brianna would be happy to see her son here, smiling and laughing. With his father.

It makes his heart hurt to think about it. 

“Deep thoughts, doctor?” 

Bruce only startles a little when Natasha slides into the seat between him and Clint. She presses a bottle of water into his hand, eyes on the game. Bruce presses his palms against the cool plastic. “Just thinking.”

“About Brianna?” Natasha guesses, edging just a little closer so her leg brushes against his. When Bruce just swallows in response, she murmurs softly, “I miss her too.”

They sit in silence, watching the game, and slowly Bruce forces his muscles to relax. And if, in the process, he leans a little more into Natasha, she doesn’t seem to mind.

\---

Playdate number six marks the day when the other shoe finally drops.

In retrospect, Bruce knows he should have seen it coming. Should’ve started to be suspicious when everything started to seem so perfect, when he started to feel happy for the first time since the accident. 

Robbie is regaling Steve and Tony with his personal retelling of the Lego Movie, complete with Tony’s indignant interruptions over the fact that Batman is represented in the movie but Iron Man isn’t, while Bruce and Natasha are making lunch and talking quietly in the kitchen. Dinner is almost done, so Bruce slides the casserole into the oven to brown and walks out into the living room to tell Robbie to go wash his hands, when he stops short at the sight of a figure standing in the doorway, watching the proceedings silently.

“If I’d known we’d be having dinner, I would have brought a side dish.” 

Bruce swallows hard, blinking a couple of times before venturing a polite, if hesitant, “Good afternoon, Director.” 

By this time, the room has gone silent, and Tony and Steve have both gotten to their feet, looking between Fury and Bruce with similarly blank expressions. Bruce senses Natasha slide into the room from the kitchen, and when he turns to look, Clint slips in beside her.

“How did you get into our home?” Tony asks, voice dripping with poorly concealed hostility. “Jarvis, I thought I programmed you to announce all visitors prior to granting entrance to the mansion.”

“I do not have a recollection of Director Fury requesting entry to the mansion, sir,” Jarvis responds after a moment’s pause, sounding surprisingly chagrined. The Avengers all look at one another confusedly, but no one moves to stop Fury as he sits down at the kitchen table. 

“It’s been a while, Dr. Banner. How have you been since we last spoke?” he asks in the same tone someone would use to discuss something as trivial as the weather. Bruce wipes his hands on his apron. 

“I’ve been about as well you’d expect, given the circumstances,” he replies. He hopes for his son his voice does not betray the nervousness he feels. Robbie stands by Thor’s side eyes wide, gazing up at the strange man. For the first time since he arrived, Fury looks at the boy. 

“Hello young man. That’s quite a nice toy you’ve got there,” he says, gesturing towards the Hulk action figure in Robbie’s hand. Robbie gives the slightest of nods. 

“Thank you.”

Bruce’s heart nearly stops when Fury reaches into his pocket, but all the man pulls out is a wrapped candy. He offers the treat to the boy. Robbie doesn’t move. 

“I’ve never met a kid who turned down one of these,” Fury jokes, though no one even laughs. Robbies squeezes his toy closer, but doesn’t look away. 

“I’m not supposed to take candy from strangers,” he says softly, and suddenly Bruce is so proud of the boy, proud of his son, that he needs to take a moment to look away. When he looks back Robbie is staring at him. He thinks for a moment, then nods. 

“It’s alright, you can take it,” he says. Robbies nods too, then quickly grabs the treat and stuffs it in his pocket where Bruce knows it will melt and probably stain the pants he just bought him. Seemingly satisfied, Fury turns from the boy back to his father. 

“So, Dr. Banner, are you ready to discuss the elephant in the room or are we going to play Happy Family some more?” 

“The only elephant in the room here is why we haven’t eaten yet. I’m starving,” complains Clint. The five simultaneous death glares he receives shuts up any further mention of dinner. Bruce crosses his arms, willing that part of him to keep it together. 

“Why did you come here?” he asks. Fury’s eyes flick from the boy back to Bruce. 

“Are you sure you want to do this with him in the room?” 

“There’s nothing you can say to me you can’t say in front of him.” 

At least, he’s pretty sure there’s not. The kid is frighteningly perceptive for a preschooler. 

There’s a tense moment and Bruce is starting to formulate what would be the quickest exit out of the mansion when Fury cracks a smile. 

“Fatherhood has done you a world of wonders, Bruce.” 

Bruce blinks. “Thank you,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Fury folds his hands in his lap. 

“But, that’s no excuse to hide this from us,” Fury says, keeping his gaze on Bruce.

“This?” Steve repeats, expression hardening. “What exactly are you referring to, Director?”

Fury glances at Steve briefly before settling his gaze on Robbie, who is looking around the room, brow furrowed. “I’m referring to the largest potential threat to world security since Loki, which you all decided to keep a secret from us.” 

Robbie walks over to Bruce, looking over at Fury for a second before asking, “What’s he talking about, Dad? What’s going on?”

Bruce picks Robbie up, holding him against his hip. “Nothing, buddy,” Bruce says firmly. “Director Fury was just leaving.” 

Fury barks out a short laugh. “If you think S.H.I.E.L.D. is letting this go that easily, the gamma radiation has damaged your brain cells more than I thought, Doctor. We will deal with how you managed to keep a child with your gamma infused genes a secret for so long later. Right now, you will give the child into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, so that we can neutralize the security threat as quickly as possible.”

Bruce has to fight back the wave of indignation and anger that swell inside him. “I think it’s time for you to leave, Director,” he grits out, holding Robbie more securely against his body. “My son and I are having dinner with friends.”

“Don’t make this difficult, Doctor Banner,” Fury replies, voice sounding forcibly calm. “We’re not inhumane; no harm will come to him. Just hand him over, please.”

“ _No harm will come to him?_ ” Bruce repeats, voice just shy of a growl. “I’ve seen your ideas of _neutralization_ up close and personally, and I know better than to trust the bullshit that comes out of your mouth, Fury. Now. Please. Leave.” 

“Dad, what’s he talking about?” Robbie asks in a panicked voice.

“Not now, Robbie,” Bruce mutters. 

Fury eyes him for a moment, before turning his gaze on the rest of the room. “I’m sorry it’s come down to this, Bruce,” he says. “Agent Barton, take custody of the child.” 

All eyes turn to Clint, whose expression is still impressively blank, even as he snaps, “Like hell I will, Fury, he’s just a kid!”

“That’s a direct order from your superior, Barton,” Fury snarls, eyes flashing. When Clint just crosses his arms across his chest firmly, Fury turns to Natasha. “Agent Romanoff?” 

“I believe Bruce asked you to leave, Director,” she answers.

Fury stares at her for a long moment. “Don’t think it’s slipped my notice that keeping this under wraps had to have been an inside job, Agent Romanoff.” When Natasha doesn’t respond, he adds, “I’m not leaving until this situation has been resolved.”

“That’s a human being you’re talking about, and he has a name, you know,” Tony says. “And I’m getting pretty tired of S.H.I.E.L.D. dropping in unannounced into our home.” 

“World security takes precedence over your psychosis, Stark,” Fury replies icily. “And _Robbie_ is a serious threat to that security.” 

“No,” Bruce snaps, surprised by his own vehemence, “He’s not. But if you even think about taking him away from me, I promise you that I will be a threat to your precious security. I will tear S.H.I.E.L.D. to the ground if you try to take my son away from me.” 

The room is deadly silent for a long minute before Fury speaks. “You had better watch what you say, Doctor, because that sounded like a direct threat to a top government organization.” 

Bruce opens his mouth to retort but stops when he sees Fury visibly tense and pull his gun. The room has gone surprisingly quiet, besides the sound of someone crying, and Bruce looks down and realizes dimly that Robbie is the source. 

But he forgets about his son’s tears when he notices that Robbie’s skin has turned decidedly green as he sobs into Bruce’s shirt. 

Bruce shifts so that his back is to Fury, and he’s blocking Robbie from Fury’s line of sight. “Shh, Robbie,” Bruce murmurs quietly, walking towards the couch. “It’s okay. Deep breaths.” He sits down, keeping Robbie in his lap, and takes one of his son’s hands and presses it to his own chest. “Breathe with me.”

Bruce keeps his eyes on his son until Robbie’s skin returns to normal, and his crying subsides to small whimper. When he looks up again, he notices that the Avengers have all moved to stand between him and Fury, and are talking quietly. 

“He needs to be under constant surveillance,” Fury is saying. 

“He _needs_ his father,” Steve replies. “Bruce is clearly the only one who knows what he’s going through and how to control it.”

“And the one time Bruce isn’t there? Or doesn’t manage to calm him down in time? Who knows how this will manifest when the kid gets older?” 

Steve crosses his arms tightly. “I thought we still operated under ‘innocent until proven guilty’, Director. Or is that no longer the case?” 

“We can’t afford to let potential threats go running around unchecked. People’s lives are at stake, Captain.”

“So Bruce and Robbie move in here.” 

All eyes turn to Natasha, who shrugs. “Who better to keep an eye on Robbie than your precious team of superheroes? All of us are capable of helping Bruce make sure Robbie learns to control his abilities, and in the off chance something does happen, we’ll be right here to make sure the situation stays in house and doesn’t spiral out of control.” 

Fury looks skeptical, but he looks around at the group. “You would all agree to this?”

At the nods and murmurs of agreement Fury sighs. “Fine. But if anything goes wrong, I’m holding each and every one of you personally responsible.”

Tony turns his gaze to Bruce, who is still sitting on the couch, listening to the conversation numbly. “How about it, Bruce? You up for being roomies?” 

Bruce looks down at Robbie, who is curled up against his side, clutching the collar of his shirt loosely. “Yes,” Bruce agrees slowly. “I can agree to that compromise. But S.H.I.E.L.D. will stay out of our lives except for actual serious emergencies. No constant surveillance, the trackers stay out of my belongings, and no unexpected house calls.” 

“I’m sure Director Fury can agree to that,” Clint says before Fury has the chance to open his mouth. “If that’s settled, then, I think we have a dinner to get back to. I’m starving.”

Fury leaves without much more resistance, shaking his head to himself as he does so. Once he’s gone and they’ve sat down to a slightly overdone casserole, Bruce turns to Robbie. 

“So how would you feel about moving in here with Tony, Steve, Natasha, Clint, and Thor?”

Robbie stares up at him, eyes wide. “Are you kidding?” he squeaks, looking around at everyone. “THIS IS AWESOME!!”

Bruce grins despite himself.


End file.
